INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



399 



larged dimensions ? And how can we feel adequate astonish- 

 ment that they should have the art of making cells of such 

 different sizes correspond ? 1 



After this long but I flatter myself not wholly uninterest- 

 ing enumeration, you will scarcely hesitate to admit that 

 insects, and of these the bee pre-eminently, are endowed with a 

 much more exquisite and flexible instinct than the larger 

 animals. But you may be here led to ask, Can all this be 

 referred to instinct ? Is not this pliability to circumstances 

 — this surprising adaptation of means for accomplishing an 

 end — rather the result of reason ? 



You will not doubt my allowing the appositeness of this 

 question, when I frankly tell you that so strikingly do many 

 of the preceding facts seem at first view the effect of rea- 

 son, that in my original sketch of the letter you are now 

 reading, I had arranged them as instances of this faculty. 

 But mature consideration has convinced me (though I con- 

 fess the subject has great difficulties) that this view was 

 fallacious; and that though some circumstances connected 

 with these facts may, as I shall hereafter show, be referable 

 to reason, the facts themselves can only be consistently ex- 

 plained by regarding them as I have here done, as examples 

 of variations of particular instincts : — and this on two ac- 

 counts. 



In the first place, these variations, however singular, are 

 limited in their extent: all bees are, and have always been, 

 able to avail themselves of a certain number, but not to in- 

 crease that number. Bees cemented their combs, when 

 becoming heavy, to the top of the hive with mitys, in the 

 time of Aristotle and Pliny as they do now ; and there is 

 every reason to believe that then, as now, they occasionally 

 varied their procedures, by securing them with wax or with 

 propolis only, either added to the upper range of cells, or 

 disposed in braces and ties to the adjoining combs. But if in 

 thus proceeding they were guided by reason, why not under 

 certain circumstances adopt other modes of strengthening 



i Huber, ii. 219. 



