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satisfactory in its definitions as it might have been, and if it had been a little 
more definite a great deal of misconception would have been avoided. W e 
all have, in the rough, general ideas of what we mean by intellect, reason, and 
instinct ; and I know it is difficult to give definitions which satisfactorily 
comprehend the distinctions between the three terms. Paley’s definition of 
instinct, given in Mr. Morshead’s paper, that it is “ a propensity prior to 
experience and independent of instruction,” is an excellent one, which we 
always use ; but in reasoning upon this subject we must be careful to bear 
in mind that man himself possesses instinct, frequently — nay, constantly — 
acts upon it, and sometimes finds himself in a difficulty in which he cannot 
distinguish the source of his own acts — whether they have been instinctive 
or the result of reason. There have been a vast number of very curious 
phenomena deduced from nature concerning the habits of the lower animals, 
and particularly of the invertebrate animals ; for there we are met with the 
most astonishing results of instinct, many of which appear to be the work of 
reason, but which may really be traced up to the certain action of instinct. 
Take the case mentioned by Mr. Row of the bees which took possession of 
an empty hive in his garden. Now, at first sight that does appear to be the 
result of considerable intelligence, but it is really attributable to the natural 
instinct of the bee. Those who have observed bees carefully know that they 
never swarm until they have found a suitable habitation ; for they would be 
destroyed by a heavy shower of rain, and they therefore send forth scouts to 
secure a good habitation, and do not swarm unless the weather is favourable, 
and until their future home is provided for them. That, therefore, may be 
referred to instinct. But there is another very peculiar fact about them, 
which may be referred to what we may term latent instinct. I am speaking 
now of the ordinary hive bees ; for it must be borne in mind that there are 
in this country something like 250 different species of bees, all having 
different instincts and habits. In the case of the hive bees, at a certain 
specified time, when they know that preparations must be made for the eggs of 
the future queens, they construct cells for them of a character totally different 
from and much larger than their ordinary cells. But if the queen dies, and 
you take away the cells containing the eggs of the future queens, what do 
they do ? They know instinctively — for that must be instinctive which they 
cannot have learnt from experience — what is the right thing to do at once 
in order to provide a new queen. They destroy the partitions between a 
certain number of ordinary cells, so as to make one large queen's cell, and the 
grub of an ordinary bee is placed in it and treated with a different kind of 
food from the rest until it is absolutely developed into a queen, though under 
ordinary circumstances it would have been a wax-maker or a neuter. 
Another remarkable fact about bees may be referred to instinct. The 
death’s-head moth is very destructive to the bees, if it can once manage to 
get within the hive, and it attracts the bees by emitting a peculiar sound like 
that which the queen bee emits in the hive. If the moth gets within the 
hive and makes that sound, it paralyzes all the bees, and they are completely 
at its mercy. Now, the death’s-head moth is generally an exceedingly scarce 
