174 
INSTINCTS. 
herself, but like the caterpillar, which she remembers herself 
once to have been. Under the influence of these reflections, 
she goes about to make provision for an order of things, 
which she concludes will, sometime or other, take place. 
And it is to be observed, that not a few out of many, but 
that all butterflies argue thus, all draw this conclusion; all 
act upon it. # 
But suppose the address, and the selection, and the plan, 
which we perceive in the preparations which many irra¬ 
tional animals make for their young, to be traced to some 
probable origin; still there is left to be accounted for, that 
which is the source and foundation of these phenomena, 
that which sets the whole at work, the otoq^i, the parent¬ 
al affection, which I contend to be inexplicable upon any 
other hypothesis than that of instinct. 
For we shall hardly, I imagine, in brutes, refer their 
conduct towards their offspring to a sense of duty, or of 
decency, a care of reputation, a compliance with public 
manners, with public laws, or with rules of life built upon 
a long experience of their utility. And all attempts to ac¬ 
count for the parental affection from association, I think, 
fail. With what is it associated ? Most immediately with 
the throes of parturition, that is, with pain, and terror, and 
disease. The more remote, but not less strong association, 
that which depends upon analogy, is all against it. Every¬ 
thing else, which proceeds from the body, is cast away and 
rejected. 
In birds, is it the egg which the hen loves? or is it the 
expectation which she cherishes of a future progeny, that 
keeps her upon her nest? What cause has she to expect 
delight from her progeny? Can any rational answer be 
given to the question, why, prior to experience, the brood¬ 
ing hen should look for pleasure from her chickens? It 
does not, I think, appear, that the cuckoo ever knows her 
* The dragon-fly is an inhabitant of the air, and could not exist in 
water; yet in this element, which is alone adapted for her young, she 
drops her eggs. 
Not less surprising is the parental instinct of the gad-fly, ( Gastero- 
philus equi) whose larvae are destined to be nourished in the stomach 
and intestines of the horse! How shall the parent convey them there? 
By a mode truly extraordinary—Flying round the animal she curiously 
poises her body while she deposits her eggs on the hairs of his skin. 
Whenever therefore the horse chances to lick the part of his body to 
which they are attached, they adhere to the tongue, and from thence pass 
into the stomach and intestines. And what increases our surprise is, that 
the fly places her eggs almost exclusively on the knee and the shoulder, 
on those parts the horse is sure to lick.— Paxton. 
