Habit and Instinct. 425 



among the altrices, young birds do not require to be taught 

 to fly, but fly instinctively so soon as the bodily organiza- 

 tion is sufficiently developed to render this activity possible. 

 He kept young swallows caged until they were fully fledged, 

 and then allowed thern to escape. They flew straight off 

 at the first attempt. They exhibited the instinctive power 

 of flight in a perfect but deferred form. 



It is, however, among the higher invertebrates — 

 especially among the insects, and of them pre-eminently 

 in the social hymenoptera, ants and bees, that the most 

 remarkable and complete instincts are seen. There is, 

 however, a tendency to ascribe all the habits of ants and 

 bees to instinct, often, as it seems to me, without sufficient 

 evidence that they are performed without instruction, and 

 through no imitation or intelligent adjustment. This is, 

 perhaps, a survival of the old-fashioned view that all the 

 mental activities of the lower animals are performed from 

 instinct, whereas all the activities of human beings are to 

 be regarded as rational or intelligent. In popular writings 

 and lectures, for example, we frequently find some or all of 

 the following activities of ant-life ascribed to instinct : 

 recognition of members of the same nest ; powers of com- 

 munication ; keeping aphides for the sake of their sweet 

 secretion ; collection of aphid eggs in October, hatching 

 them out in the nest, and taking them in the spring to the 

 daisies, on which they feed, for pasture ; slave-making and 

 slave-keeping, which, in some cases, is so ancient a habit 

 that the enslavers are unable even to feed themselves ; 

 keeping insects as beasts of burden, e.g. a kind of plant-bug 

 to carry leaves ; keeping beetles, etc., as domestic pets ; 

 habits of personal cleanliness, one ant giving another a 

 brush-up, and being brushed-up in return ; habits of play 

 and recreation ; habits of burying the dead ; the storage of 

 grain and nipping the budding rootlet to prevent further 

 germination ; the habits described by Dr. Lincecum, and 

 to a large extent confirmed by Dr. McCook,* that Texan 



* Dr. McCook confirms the observation that the clearings are kept clean, 

 that the ant-rice alone is permitted to grow on them, and that the produce of 



