INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 555 
round the hive are effectually secured with propolis, the instinct directing, 
the collection of this substance lies dormant; but transfer. the bees to a 
new hive which shall require a new luting, and it is instantly re-excited. But 
these instances are superfluous. Every one knows that at the same mo- 
ment of time the citizens of a hive are employed in the most varied and 
opposite operations, Some are collecting pollen; others are in search of 
honey ; some busied at home in the first construction of the cells; others 
in giving them their last polish; others in ventilating the hive ; others 
again in feeding the young brood and the like. 
Now, how are we to account for this regularity of procedure — this un- 
deviating accuracy with which the precise instinct wanted is excited —this 
total absence of all confusion in the employment, by each inhabitant of the 
hive, of that particular instinct out of so many which the good of the 
community requires ? No thinking man ever witnesses the complexness 
and yet regularity and efficiency of a great establishment, such as the Bank 
of England or the Post-Office, without marvelling that even human reason 
can put together, with so little friction and such slight deviations from 
correctness, machines whose wheels are composed not of wood and iron, 
but of fickle mortals of a thousand different inclinations, powers, and 
capacities. But if such establishments be surprising even with reason for 
their prime mover, how much more so is a hive of bees whose proceedings 
are guided by their instincts alone! We can conceive that the sensations 
of hunger experienced on awaking in the morning should excite into action 
their instinct of gathering honey. But all are hungry; yet all do not rush 
out in search of flowers. What sensation is it that detains a portion of the 
hive at home, unmindful of the gnawings of an empty stomach, busied in 
domestic arrangements, until the return of their roving companions ? OF 
those that fly abroad, what conception can we form of the cause which, 
while one set is gathering honey or pollen, leads another company to load 
their legs with pellets of propolis ? Are we to say that the instinct of the 
former is excited by one sensation, that of the latter by another? But 
why should one sensation predominate in one set of bees, while another 
takes the lead in a second ?— or how is it that these different instincts 
are called up precisely in the degree which the actual and changing state 
of things in the hive requires? Of those which remain at home, what is 
it that determines in one party the instinct of building cells to prevail ; in 
another that of ventilating the hive; in a third that of feeding the young 
brood? For my own part, I confess that the more I reflect on this 
subject, and contrast the. diversity of the means with the regularity and 
uniformity of the end, the more | am lost in astonishment. The effects of 
instinct seem even more wonderful than those of reason, in the same 
manner as the consentaneous movements of a mighty and divided army, 
which, though under the command of twenty generals, and from the most 
distant quarters, should meet at the assigned spot at the very hour fixed 
upon, would be more surprising than the steam-moved operations, however 
complex, of one of Boulton’s mints. 
For the sake of distinctness and,compression, I have confined myself in 
considering the numbers of the instincts of individual insects to a single 
species, the bee ; but if the history of other societies of these animals — 
wasps, ants, &c., detailed in my former letters, — be duly weighed, it will 
be seen that they furnish examples of the variety in question fully as strik- 
ing. These corroborating proofs I shall leave to your own inference, and 
