152 



THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 



ing the sand from the interior, till it completes its pit to the 

 bottom or apex. It is indefatigable in its labours, and re- 

 lieves the leg which it uses as a shovel to load its head, by 

 working through each successive circle in an opposite direc- 

 tion, and thus exercising each leg alternately, always work- 

 ing with the one next the centre. When it meets with 

 stones too large to be jerked from its head, it contrives to 

 get them poised upon its back, and if in ascending the sides 

 of the pit, the stone should be again precipitated, in renew- 

 ing its attempt to carry it up, it avails itself of the channel 

 made by the falling stone, as a road, against the sides of 

 which it can support and direct its load in the ascent. Sta- 

 tioned at the bottom of its little pit, if an Ant should stum- 

 ble over the margin it hastens the descent and capture of its 

 prej' by the fall of little loads of sand which it jerks in 

 quick succession upon the escaping insect. All this how- 

 ever is surpassed by the Termites, whose nests are formed 

 of cla}^, and are as large as huts, being generally of no less 

 a height than twelve feet, and broad in proportion, and 

 which when in clusters resemble an Indian village, and may 

 at a distance be mistaken for one. The interior of one of 

 these structures presents a most surprising skill and intelli- 

 gence, both in the construction and appropriation. The 

 apartments, avenues, and communications, consisting of 

 vaulted chambers, built of various materials, galleries con- 

 structed spirally for the facility of ascent, arches or bridges 

 of communication, said to be projected, not excavated, are 

 appropriated for royal and other apartments, nurseries, 

 magazines, &c. No one can surely contemplate the gigan- 

 tic, and at the same time scientific, operations of these won- 

 derful creatures, — which yet are scarcely the fourth of an 

 inch in length, — without feeling struck by the manifesta- 

 tion of an agency far above the discrimination of the sub- 

 jects in whose actions it is presented, and whose economy 

 is justly characterized as "a miracle of nature." 



But the operations of an intelligence in the conduct of the 

 insect race, superior to the conscious faculties of the creature, 

 is made still more manifest by its appearance not only in 

 what has been called blind instinct, — which term itself, 

 rightly interpreted, must imply the existence of controlling 

 influences, — but also by its development in strictly contin- 

 gent acts, affording evidences of the same intelligent de- 

 sign and adaptation, in agreement with what such particular 

 circumstances require. That such do really occur, the fol- 

 lowing extract will satisfactorily demonstrate: 



" In the course of his ingenious and numerous experi- 

 ments, M. Huber put under a bell glafes about a dozen Hum- 

 ble-Bees, without any store of wax, along with a comb of about 

 ten silken cocoons, so unequal in height, that it was impossi- 

 ble the mass should stand firmly. Its unsteadiness disquieted 

 tlie Humble-Bces extremely. Their affection for their 

 young led them to mount upon the cocoons, for the sake of 



imparting warmth to the inclosed little ones, but, in attempt- 

 ing this, the comb tottered so violently, that the scheme 

 was almost impracticable. To remedy this inconvenience, 

 and to make the comb steady, they had recourse to a most 

 ingenious expedient. Two or three bees got upon the 

 comb, stretched themselves over its edge, and with their 

 heads downwards, fixed their fore-feet on the table upon 

 which it stood, whilst with their hind-feet they kept it from 

 falling. In this constrained and painful posture, fresh bees 

 relieving their comrades when weary, did these affectionate 

 little insects support the comb for nearly three days! at the 

 end of this period they had prepared a sufficiency of wax, 

 with which they built pillars that kept it in a firm position: 

 but by some accident afterwards these got displaced, when 

 they had again recourse to their former manoeuvre for sup- 

 plying their place, and this operation they perseveringly 

 continued, until M. Huber, pitying their hard case, relieved 

 them by fixing the object of their attention firmly on the 

 table. 



"It is impossible," the authors remark, "not to be 

 struck with the reflection that this most singular fact is in- 

 explicable on the supposition that insects are impelled to 

 their operations by a blind instinct alone. How could mere 

 machines have thus provided for a case, which in a state of 

 nature has probably never occurred to ten nests of Humble- 

 Bees since the creation? If, in this instance, these little 

 animals were not guided by a process of reasoning, what is 

 the distinction between reason and instinct? How could 

 the most profound architect have better adapted the means 

 to the end — how more dexterously shored up a tottering 

 edifice, until his beams and his props were in readiness ?" 



A process of reasoning, or intellectual deduction, is here 

 certainly incontrovertible, but this, at the same time, is so 

 much beyond the nature and condition of the creature, that 

 we cannot suppose it performed within its proper conscious- 

 ness. What, then, in this case, and if in this case, in 

 every other, is the distinction between reason and instinct? 

 It is, I apprehend, this: reason is a deduction of intellect 

 within the conscious perception of the subject whose actions 

 exhibit it: — instinct is a similar deduction of intellect, not 

 within, but above the conscious perception of the subject 

 whose actions exhibit it. For a consciousness of possess- 

 ing and exercising such intelligence cannot exist without 

 elevating its subject to that intellectual freedom which is 

 the proper and distinguishing characteristic of human ra- 

 tionality. 



If we ascend to the higher classes of animals, fewer in- 

 stances occur of those operations which include in them 

 principles of science; and the actions of this character 

 which are to be observed among such animals, do not appear 

 to arise from a conscious free piinciple, but to be the result 

 of a dictation, similar to that by which the operations of the 



