INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



413 



numerous cases, which of the actions of insects are to be 

 deemed purely instinctive, and which the result of reason. 

 What I advance, therefore, on this head, I wish to be re- 

 garded rather as conjectures, that, after the best consideration 

 I am able to give to a subject so much beyond my depth, 

 seem to me plausible, than as certainties to which I require 

 your implicit assent. 



That reason has nothing to do with the major part of the 

 actions of insects is clear, as I have before observed, from the 

 determinateness and perfection of these actions, and from their 

 being performed independently of instruction and experience. 

 A young bee (I must once more repeat) betakes itself to the 

 complex operation of building cells with as much skill as the 

 oldest of its compatriots. We cannot suppose that it has any 

 knowledge of the purposes for which the cells are destined ; or 

 of the effects that will result from its feeding the young larvae, 

 and the like. And if an individual bee be thus destitute of 

 the very materials of reasoning as to its main operations, so 

 must the society in general. 



Nor in those remarkable deviations and accommodations to 

 circumstances, instanced under a former head, can we, for 

 considerations there assigned, suppose insects to be influenced 

 by reason. These deviations are still limited in number, and 

 involve acts far too complex and recondite to spring from any 

 process of ratiocination in an animal whose term of life does 

 not exceed two years. 



It does not follow, however, that reason may not have a 

 part in inducing some of these last-mentioned actions, though 

 the actions themselves are purely instinctive. I do not pre- 

 tend to explain in what way or degree they are combined ; but 

 certainly some of the facts do not seem to admit of explana- 

 tion, except on this supposition. Thus, in the instance above 

 cited from Huber, in which the bees bent a comb at right 

 angles in order to avoid a slip of glass, the remarkable varia- 

 tions in the form of the cells can only, as I have there said, 

 be referred to instinct. Yet the original determination to 

 avoid the glass seems, as Huber himself observes, to indicate 

 something more than instinct, since glass is not a substance 

 against which nature can be supposed to have forewarned bees, 



