INSTINCT, SENSATION, AND INTELLIGENCE. m 



Whence derive the young- of every kind a knowledge of the peculiar powers 

 that are to appertain to them hereafter, even before the full formation of the 

 organs in which those powers are to reside 1 To adopt the beautifallanguage 

 of the first physiologist of Rome, 



Cornua nata prius vitiilo quam frontibus exstent, 

 Illis iratus petit, atque infestus inurguet : 

 At catulei pantherarum, scymneique leonum, 

 Unguibus, ac pedibus jam turn morsuque repugnant, 

 Vix etiam quom sunt dentes unguesque createi. 

 Alitum proporso genus alis omne videmus 

 Fidere, et a pennis tremulum petere auxiliarum.* 



The young calf whose horns 

 Ne'er yet have sprouted, Avith his naked front 

 Butts when enraged : the lion whelp or pard 

 With claws and teeth contends, ere teeth or claws 

 Scarce spring conspicuous ; while the pinion'd tribes 

 Trust to their wings, and from th' expanded down 

 Draw, when first tledg'd, a tremulous defence. 



In like manner an infant, in danger of falling from its nurse's arms, stretches 

 out its little hands to break the fall as though acquainted by experience with 

 the use of such an action. We here meet with an instance of pure instinct ; 

 but we pursue the same conduct in adult age, and we have then an example 

 of instinct combined with intelligence ; and intelligence, instead of opposing 

 the instinctive exertion, encourages and fortifies it. So when caterpillars, 

 observes Mr. Smellie, are shaken from a tree, in whatever direction they de- 

 scend, they all instantly turn towards the trunk and climb upwards, though 

 till now they have never been on the surface of the ground. 



The vegetable kingdom offers us examples of simple instinct equally sin- 

 gular and marvellous. Thus the stalk of the convolvulus twines from the 

 left or east by the south to the west, the face being towards the south : the 

 phaseolus vulgaris, or kidney-bean, pursues the same course : while the honey- 

 suckle and the hop take a perfectly reverse direction. Who will reveal to us 

 the cause of these differences 1 



In the following instances the cause is obvious : it proceeds from the pe- 

 culiar structure and power of the different animals to which they relate : and 

 it would perhaps be as obvious to us in the preceding, were we as intimately 

 acquainted with the nature of plants as of animals. The squirrel, the field- 

 mouse, and the very curious bird called nut-hatch (sitta Europoea), live equally 

 on hazel-nuts ; but each of them opens them in a very different manner. 

 The squirrel, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two with his 

 long fore-teeth, as a man does with his knife : the field-mouse nibbles a hole 

 with his teeth as regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that it 

 is wonderful how the kernel can be extracted through it ; while the nut-hatch 

 picks an irregular ragged hole with his bill ; but as this artist has no paws to 

 hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman he fixes it, as it 

 were, in a vice in some cleft of a tree or in some crevice ; when, standing 

 over it, he readily perforates the stubborn shell ; and while at work makes a 

 rapping noise that may be heard at a considerable distance.f 



The sphex or ichneumon wasp, in its perfect state, feeds on the nectary of 

 flowers; but as soon as she is fitted to deposite her eggs, she becomes actu- 

 ated by an appetite of another kind. She first bores a small cylindrical hole 

 in a sandy soil, into which, by accurately turning round, she drops an egg: 

 she then seeks out a small green caterpillar that inhabits the leav'es of the 

 cabbage-plant, and which she punctures with her sting, yet so slightly and 

 delicately as not to kill it ; she then rolls it up into a circle-, and places it in 

 the sandy nest immediately over the egg; She continues the pursuit till she 

 has counted twelve ; and has, in like manner, deposited twelve caterpillars 

 one over the other ; and repeats the same process till she has exhausted her- 

 self of her entire stock of eggs. She immediately closes the holes and dies. 



* De Rer. Nat. v. 1038. 



t See White's Nat. Hist, of Selbourno. 

 P 



