PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 137 
of the cock: this has been observed more than once by 
ornithologists, more particularly with respect to the 
pheasant and the pea-hen*.—For females to assume the 
secondary characters of males, seems certainly a more 
violent change, than for a worker bee, which may be 
regarded as a sterile female, in consequence of a certain 
process, to assume the secondary characters of a fertile 
female. 
With respect to the variations of instinct and cha- 
racter which result from the different modes of rearing 
the young bees that we are now considering; it would 
not, I think, be difficult to prove, that causes at first 
sight equally inadequate have produced effects full as im- 
portant on the habits, tempers, and characters of men 
and other animals: but as these will readily occur to 
you, I shall not now enlarge upon them. 
Did we know the causes of the various deviations, as 
to form and the like, observable in the three kingdoms 
of nature, and could apply them, we should be able to 
produce these deviations at our pleasure. This is ex- 
actly what the bees do. Their instinct teaches them 
that a certain kind of food, supplied to a grub inhabiting 
a certain dwelling, in a certain position, will produce 
certain effects upon it, rendering it different from what 
it would have been under ordinary circumstances, and 
fitted to answer their peculiar wants. 
I trust that these arguments and probabilities will in 
some degree reconcile you to what at first sight seems so 
extraordinary and extravagant a doctrine. If not yet 
fully satisfied, I can only recommend your having re- 
4 Philos. Trans. 1792. viii. 167. Hunter on certain Parts of the 
Animal GEconomy, p. 65. Latham, Synops. ii. 672. t. 60. 
