380 



INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



experience, and without a knowledge of the end in view, they 

 are impelled to the performance of certain actions tending to 

 the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the 

 species : and with this description, which is, in fact, merely a 

 confession of ignorance, we must, in the present state of me- 

 taphysical science, content ourselves. 



I here say nothing of that supposed connection of the in- 

 stinct of animals with their sensations, which has been intro- 

 duced into many definitions of this mysterious power, for two 

 reasons. In the first place, this definition merely sets the 

 world upon the tortoise; for what do we know more than 

 before about the nature of instinct, when we have called it, 

 with Brown, a predisposition to certain actions when certain 

 sensations exist, or with Tucker have ascribed it to the oper- 

 ation of the senses, or to that internal feeling called appetite ? 

 But, secondly, this connection of instinct with bodily sens- 

 ation, though probable enough in some instances, is by no 

 means generally evident. We may explain in this way the 

 instincts connected with hunger and the sexual passion, and 

 some other particular facts, as the laying of the eggs of the 

 flesh-fly in the flowers of Stapelia hirsuta, instead of in car- 

 rion, their proper nidus, and of those of the common house- 

 fly in snuff 1 instead of dung; for in these instances the smell 

 seems so clearly the guide, that it even leads into error. But 

 what connection between sensation and instinct do we see in 

 the conduct of the working-bees, which fabricate some of the 

 cells in a comb larger than others, expressly to contain the 

 eggs and future grubs of drones, though these eggs are not 

 laid by themselves, and are still in the ovaries of the queen ? 

 So we may plausibly enough conjecture that the fury with 

 which, in ordinary circumstances, at a certain period of the 

 year, the working-bees are inspired towards the drones, is the 

 effect of some disagreeable smell or emanation proceeding from 

 them at that particular time : but how can we explain, on 

 similar grounds, the fact that in a hive deprived of a queen, 



1 Dr. Zinken genannt Soinmer says, that if in August and September a snuff- 

 box be left open, it will be seen to be frequented by the common house-fly 

 (Musca domestica), the eggs of which will be found to have been deposited 

 amongst the snuff. Germar, Mag. der Ent. I. ii. 189. 



