498 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
blage, and no vacant intervals or patching at the junc- 
tions either of the tubes or the bottoms of the cells ;— 
and you would have set him no very easy task—a task, 
in short, which it may be doubted if he would satisfac- 
torily perform in a twelvemonth, though gifted with a 
clear head and a competent store of geometrical know- 
ledge, and which, if destitute of these requisites, it may 
be safely asserted that he would never perform at all. 
How then can we imagine it possible that this difficult 
problem, and others of a similar kind, can be so com~ 
pletely and exactly solved by animals of which some are 
not two days old, others not a week, and probably none 
a year? ‘The conclusion is irresistible—it is not reason 
but znstinct that is their guide. 
The second head under which I proposed contrasting 
the instincts of insects with those of the larger animals, 
was that of their number in the same individual.—In the 
latter this is for the most part very limited, not exceeding 
(if we omit those common to almost all animated beings) 
eight or ten distinct instincts. Thus in the common 
duck, one mstinct leads it at its birth from the egg to 
rush to the water; another to seek its proper food; a 
third to pair with its mate; a fourth to form a nest; a 
fifth to sit upon its eggs till hatched; a sixth to assist 
the young ducklings in extricating themselves from the 
shell; and a seventh to defend them when in danger un- 
til able to provide for themselves: and it would not be 
easy, as far as my knowledge extends, to add many more 
distinct instinctive actions to the enumeration, or to ad- 
duce many species of the superior classes of animals, en- 
dowed with a greater number. 
But how vastly more manifold are the instincts of the 
