EDWARD BURGESS. 61 



stinct and says that no satisfactory explanation can be 

 given for it. The only one that he offers is that at some 

 time the drones may have been useful members of the 

 community and were therefore preserved, and that now, 

 though they are no longer useful, they are still per- 

 mitted to live for a time from the force of the earlier 

 habit. But then the law of natural selection and the 

 survival of the fittest should have long since weeded 

 them out. This apparently seems to be a case where 

 that law is not stringently operative. It is possible that 

 some solution may yet be found for it. 



Even in this incomplete enumeration of their habits, 

 it is clear that bees possess remarkable instincts, and 

 that these instincts like those of the ants, are closely 

 associated with intelligence. The construction of their 

 combs, and the repairing them when injured, putting in 

 temporary supports to prop them up, until permanent 

 repairs can be made, another removing the scaffolding as 

 no longer needed ; " the rearing of the queen bees, 

 selecting and setting apart for them a food which can 

 alone develop them " ; the intelligent care bestowed upon 

 the young, the ventilation of their hives, ceasing to store 

 honey when removed to a warmer climate, and many 

 other habits, attest a mental power that justly entitles 

 them to a high rank in the scale of intelligence. 



The instincts and habits of birds afford an interesting 

 field of inquiry. The affection and sympathy which they 

 show for one another is well known. Some birds are in- 

 consolable in the loss of their mates and often sacrifice 

 their own lives in the defense of their young. Jesse tells 

 of a male pigeon, that had for some time committed 

 serious depredations in a corn-field, and was shot by one 

 of the men on the farm. His mate at once fiew down to 

 the ground beside him, and stood over him, showing the 

 most unmistakable signs of grief. His body was hung 

 upon a stick to frighten away others, but was unheeded 



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