INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 539. 
adapted in capacity to different orders of the society, and storehouses for. 
containing a supply of provision? Even the erections of the beaver, and 
the pensile dwelling of the tailor-bird, must be referred to a less elaborate 
instinct than that which guides the procedures of these little insects, the 
complexness and yet perfection of whose operations, when contrasted with 
the insignificance of the architect, haye at all times caused the reflecting 
observer to be lost in astonishment. 
It is, however, in the deviations of the instincts of insects, and their 
accommodation to circumstances, that the exquisiteness of these faculties 
is most decidedly manifested. The instincts of the larger animals seem 
capable of but slight modification. They are either exercised in their 
full extent or not all. A bird when its nest is pulled out of a bush, 
though it should be laid uninjured close by, never attempts to replace it 
in its situation ; it contents itself with building another. But insects in 
similar contingencies often exhibit the most ingenious resources, their 
instincts surprisingly accommodating themselves to the new circumstances 
in which they are placed, in a manner more wonderful and incompre- 
hensible than the existence of the faculties themselves. Take a honey- 
comb, for instance. If every comb that bees fabricate were always made 
precisely alike — with the same general form, placed in the same position, 
the cells all exactly similar, or where varying with the variations always 
alike — this structure would perhaps in reality be not more astonishing 
than many of a much simpler conformation. But when we know that in 
nine instances out of ten the combs in a bee-hive are thus similar in their 
properties, and yet that the tenth one shall be found of a form altogether 
peculiar ; placed in a different position ; with cells of a different shape — 
and all these variations evidently adapted to some new circumstances not 
present when the other nine were constructed, — we are constrained to 
admit that nothing in the instinct of other animals can be adduced exhibit- 
ing similar exquisiteness: just as we must confess an ordinary loom, how- 
ever ingeniously contrived, far excelled by one capable of repairing its 
defects when out of order. 
The examples of this variation and accommodation to circumstances 
among insects are very numerous ; and as presenting many interesting 
facts in their history not before related, I shall not fear wearying you with 
a pretty copious detail of them, beginning with the more simple. 
It is the instinct of Geotropes vernalis to roll up pellets of dung, in each 
of which it deposits one of its eggs; and in places where it meets with 
cow or horse dung only, it is constantly under the necessity of having 
recourse to this process, But in districts where sheep are kept, this beetle 
wisely saves its labour, and ingeniously avails itself of the pellet-shaped 
Bt ready made to its hands which the excrement of these animals sup- 
plies. 
A caterpillar described by Bonnet, which from being confined in a box 
was unable to obtain a supply of the bark with which its ordinary instinct 
directs it to make its cocoon, substituted pieces of paper that were given 
to it, tied them together with silk, and constructed a very passable cocoon 
with them. In another instance the same naturalist having opened several 
cocoons of a moth (Cucuillia Verbasci), which are composed of a mixture 
of grains of earth and silk, just after being finished, the larva did not 
repair the injury in thesame manner. Some employed both earth and silk ; 
1 Sturm, Deutschlands Fauna, i, 27. 
