II^STINCT, SENSATION, AND INTELUGENeE. -245 



I Cornua nata prius vitulo 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 uuguesque create!. 

 Alitum proporso genus alls omne videtuus 

 Fidere, et a pennis tremulum petere auxiliarura.* 



The young calf whose horns 

 -Ne'er yet have sprouted, with his naked front 

 Butts when enrag'd : 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 wmgs, and, (roui th' expanded d> wn 

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



Ill 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 ex- 

 perience 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 opposingrthe instinctive exertion, encourages and fortifies it. So 

 when caterpillars, observes Mr. Smellie, are shaken from a tree, in what- 

 ever direction they descend, they all instantly turn towards the trunk an^ 

 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 

 singular 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 ? 



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

 peculiar 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 Europma,) 

 live equally on hazle-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 whimble, and 

 yet so small that it is wonderful how the kernal 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 considera- 

 ble distance, t 



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 

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

 -liole in a sandy soil, into which, by accurately turning round, she drops an 

 jQgg : she then seeks out a small green caterpillar that inhabits the leaves 

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



* De Rer. Nat. v. 1038, 



t ?ee White's Nat, Hist, of Selborne. 



