INSTINCT OF INSECTS, 525 
this instance conveyed news of the booty to his comrades, 
who would not otherwise have at once directed their steps 
in a body to the only accessible route. 
A German artist, a man of strict veracity, states that 
in his journey through Italy he was an eye-witness to 
the following occurrence. He observed a species of 
Scarabeus busily engaged in making, for the reception 
of its ege, a pellet of dung, which when finished it rolled 
to the summit of a small hillock, and repeatedly suffered 
to tumble down its side, apparently for the sake of con- 
solidating it by the earth which each time adhered to it. 
During this process the pellet unluckily fell into an ad- 
joining hole, out of which all the efforts of the beetle to 
extricate it were in vain. After several ineffectual trials, 
the insect repaired to an adjoining heap of dung, and 
soon returned with three of his companions. All four 
now applied their united strength to the pellet, and at 
length succeeded in pushing it out; which being done, 
the three assistant beetles left the spot and returned to 
their own quarters ?. 
Lastly, insects are endowed with memory, which (at 
least in connexion with the purposes to which it is sub- 
servient) implies some degree of reason also; and their 
historian may exclaim with the poet who has so well 
sung the pleasures of this faculty, 
Hail, Memory, hail! thy universal reign 
Guards the least link of Being’s glorious chain. 
In the elegant lines in which this couplet occurs’, 
4 Iiliger Mag. 1. 488. 
b “ Hark ! the bee winds her small but mellow horn, 
Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn. O’er 
