554 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
I have now instanced at least thirty distinct instincts with which every 
individual of the nurses amongst the werking-bees is endowed; and if to 
the account be added their care to carry from the hive the dead bodies of 
any of.the community; their pertinacity in their battles, in directing their 
sting at those parts only of the bodies of their adversaries which are pe- 
netrable by it; their annual autumnal murder of the drones, &c. &c. — it 
is certain that this number might be very considerably increased, perhaps 
doubled. 
At the first view you will be inclined to suspect some fallacy in this 
enumeration, and that this variety of actions ought to be referred rather to 
some general principle, capable of accommodating itself to different cir- 
cumstances, than to so many different kinds of instinct. But to what 
principle? Not to reason, the faculty to which we assign this power of 
varying accommodation. All the actions above adduced come strictly 
under the description of instinctive actions, being all performed by every 
generation of bees since the creation of the world, and as perfectly a day 
or two after their birth as at any subsequent period. And as the very 
essence of instinct consists in the determinate character of the actions to 
which it gives birth, it is clear that every distinctly different action must 
be referred to a distinct instinct. Few will dispute that the instinct which 
leads a duck to resort to the water is a different instinct from that which 
leads her to sit upon her eggs ; for the hen, though endowed with one, is 
not with the other. In fact, they are as distinct and unconnected as the 
senses of sight and smell; and it appears to me that it would be as con- 
trary to philosophical accuracy of language in the former case to call the 
two instincts modifications of each other, as in the latter so to designate 
the two senses; and as we say that a deaf and blind man has fewer senses 
than other men, so (strictly) we ought not to speak of instinct as one 
faculty (though to avoid circumlocution, I have myself often employed this 
common mode of expression), or say that one insect has a greater or less 
share of instinct than another, but more or fewer instincts. That it is not 
always easy to determine what actions are to be referred to a distinct in- 
stinct and what to a modification of an instinct, I am very ready to admit; 
but this is no solid ground for regarding all instincts as modifications of 
some one principle. It is often equally difficult to fix the limits between 
instinct and reason ; but we are not on this account justified in deeming 
them the same. ; 
This multitude of instincts in the same individual becomes more wonder- 
ful when considered in another point of view. Were they constantly to 
follow each other in regular sequence, so that each bee necessarily first 
began to build cells, then to collect honey, next pollen, and so on, we 
might plausibly enough refer them to some change in the sensations of the 
animal, caused by alterations in the structure and gradual development of 
its organs, in the same way as on similar principles we explain the sexual 
instincts of the superior tribes. But it is certain that no such consecutive 
series prevails. The different instincts of the bee are called into action in 
an order regulated solely by the needs of the society. If combs be wanted, 
no bee collects honey for storing until they are provided; and if, when 
constructed, any accident injure or destroy them, every labour is suspended 
until the mischief is repaired or new ones substituted.? When the crevices 
. 1 Huber, ii, 64, ® Thid, ii, 138, 
