PEKFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



115 



beards ; and after they have done laying, hen-birds occasion- 

 ally assume the plumage of the cock : this has been observed 

 more than once by ornithologists, more particularly with re- 

 spect to the pheasant and the pea-hen. 1 For females to as- 

 sume the secondary characters of males, seems certainly a 

 more violent change, than for a worker bee, which may be 

 regarded as a sterile female, in consequence of a certain pro- 

 cess, to assume the secondary characters of a fertile female. 



With respect to the variations of instinct and character 

 which result from the different modes of training the young 

 bees that we are now considering, it would not, I think, be 

 difficult to prove that causes at first sight equally inadequate 

 have produced effects fully as important on the habits, tem- 

 pers, and characters of men and other animals ; but as 

 these will readily occur to you, I shall not now enlarge 

 upon them. 



Did we know the causes of the various deviations, as to 

 form and the like, observable in the three kingdoms of nature, 

 and could apply them, we should be able to produce these 

 deviations at our pleasure. This is exactly what the bees do. 

 Their instinct teaches them that a certain kind of food, sup- 

 plied to a grub inhabiting a certain dwelling, in a certain 

 position, will produce certain effects upon it, rendering it 

 different from what it would have been under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, and fitted to answer their peculiar wants. 



I trust that these arguments and probabilities will in some 

 degree reconcile you to what at first sight seems so extra- 

 ordinary and extravagant a doctrine. If not yet fully satisfied, 

 I can only recommend your having recourse to experiments 

 yourself. Leaving you, therefore, to this best mode of proof, 

 I shall proceed to another part of my history : — but first I 

 must mention an experiment of Reaumur's, which seems to 

 come well in here. To ascertain whether the expectation of 

 a queen was sufficient to keep alive the instinct and industry 

 of the worker bees, he placed in a glazed hive some royal cells 

 containing both grubs and pupae, and then introduced about 

 1000 or 1500 workers and some drones. These workers, 



1 Philos. Trans. 1792, viii. 167. Hunter On certain Parts of the Animal (Eco- 

 nomy, p. 65. Latham, Synops. ii. 672. t. 60. 



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