426 INSTINCTS OF BEES. 



have been taken in acquiring them. In the lower links of 

 creation, but little of this gradual improvement is observable ; 

 their powers carry them almost directly to their object. 

 They are perfect, as Bacon says, in all their members and 

 organs from the very beginning." 



" Far difi'erent Man, to higher fates assign'd, 

 Unfolds with tardier step his Proteus mind, 

 With numerous Instincts fraught, that lose their force 

 Like shallow streams, divided in their course ; 

 Long weak, and helpless, on the fostering breast, 

 In fond dependence leans the infant guest, 

 Till reason ripens what young impulse taught, 

 And builds, on sense, the lofty pile of thought ; 

 From earth, sea, air, the quick perceptions rise. 

 And swell the mental fabric to the skies." 



Evans. 



" There are facts," says Bevan, " recorded in the younger 

 Huber's researches respecting the Amazon Ants, which ex- 

 hibit a power of acquiring habits and characters which can- 

 not well be regarded as merely instinctive. The Amazons, 

 to relieve themselves from labor, enslave, by a coup de main, 

 a feeble colony of ants of another species, and transporting 

 them to their own doinicile, impose upon the captives, the 

 task of collecting provisions, rearing the young, repairing 

 their habitation, besides other labors of the formicary." 



" Dr. Darvin," (I quote again from Bevan,) " in his Zoo- 

 nomia, relates an anecdote of apparent reasoning in a wasp, 

 which had caught a fly nearly as large as itself. Kneeling 

 down, he saw the wasp dissever the head and tail from the 

 trunk of the fly, and attempt to soar with the latter ; but 

 finding, when about two feet from the ground, that the wings 

 of the fly carried too much sail, causing its prize and itself 

 to be whirled about, by a little breeze that had arisen, it 

 dropped upon the ground with its prey, and sawed off with 

 its mandibles, first one wing and then another ; having thus 

 removed these impediments, the wasp flew away with its 



