INSTINCT.
but not to leave room for objection, 1 shall
regard them as the result of one only: yet
the operations of polishing the interior of the
cells, and soldering their angles and orifices
with propolis, which are sometimes not under¬
taken for weeks after the cells are built; and
the obscure but still more curious one of var¬
nishing them with the yellow tinge observable
in old combs, seem clearly referable to at
least two distinct instincts.
“ In their out-of-door operations several dis¬
tinct instincts are concerned. By one they are
led to extract honey from the nectaries of
flowers ; by another to collect pollen after a
process involving very complicated manipu¬
lations, and requiring a singular apparatus of
brushes and baskets ; and that must surely be
considered a third which so remarkably and
beneficially restricts each gathering to the same
plant. It is clearly a distinct instinct which
inspires bees with such dread of rain, that
even if a cloud pass before the sun, they return
to the hive in the greatest haste.
“ Several distinct instincts, again, are called
into action in the important business of feeding
the young brood. One teaches them to swal¬
low pollen, not to satisfy the calls of hunger,
but that it may undergo in their stomach an
elaboration fitting it for the food of the grubs ;
and another to regurgitate it when duly con¬
cocted, and to administer it to their charge,
proportioning the supply to the age and con¬
dition of the recipients. A third informs them
when the young grubs have attained their full
growth, and directs them to cover their cells
with a waxen lid, convex in the male cells, but
nearly flat in those of workers, and by a fourth,
as soon as the young bees have burst into day,
they are impelled to clean out the deserted
tenements and make them ready for new oc¬
cupants.
“ Numerous as are the instincts already
mentioned, the list must yet include those
connected with that mysterious principle which
binds the working bees of a hive to their
queen :—the singular imprisonment in which
they retain the young queens that are to lead
off a swarm, until their wings be sufficiently
expanded to enable them to fly the moment
they are at liberty, gradually paring away the
waxen wall that confines them to an extreme
thinness, and only suffering it to be broken
down at the precise moment required;—the
attention with which in these circumstances
they feed the imprisoned queen by frequently
putting honey on her proboscis, protruded from
a small orifice in the lid of her cell;—the
watchfulness with which, when at the period
of swarming more queens than one are re¬
quired, they place a guard over the cells of
those undisclosed, to preserve them from the
jealous fury of their excluded rivals ;—the
exquisite calculation with which they inva¬
riably release the oldest queens the first from
their confinement ;—the singular love of mo¬
narchical dominion, by which, when two queens
in other circumstances are produced, they are
led to impel them to combat until one is de¬
stroyed ;—the ardent devotion which binds
them to the fate and fortune of the survivor;—
the distraction which they manifest at her
loss, and their resolute determination not to
accept of any stranger until an interval has
elapsed sufficiently long to allow of no chance
of the return of their rightful sovereign ;—and
(to omit a further enumeration) the obedience
which in the utmost noise and confusion they
shew to her well-known hum.
« I have now instanced at least thirty dis¬
tinct instincts with which every individual of
the nurses amongst the working-bees is en¬
dowed ; and if to the account be added their
care to carry from the hive the dead bodies of
any of the community; their pertinacity in
their battles, in directing their sting at those
parts only of the bodies of their adversaries
which are penetrable by it; their annual autum¬
nal murder of the drones, &c. &c.—it is cer¬
tain that this number might be very consider¬
ably increased, perhaps doubled.”*
To these instincts, in the case of some species
of ants we shall certainly have to add those by
which they are guided in carrying on a regular
system of warfare, either with other hives of the
same species or with other species, in subjuga¬
ting and bringing up as workers or slaves those
that they have subdued, and likewise in sub¬
jecting to their dominion tribes of Aphides.-!
But all this becomes still more surprising,
because more at variance with the usual in¬
stincts of animals, when we consider the power
of adapting their operations to changes in their
circumstances, which such associations of in¬
sects possess.
“ It is,” says Mr. Spence, “ in the deviations
of the instincts of insects and their accommoda¬
tion to circumstances, that the exquisiteness of
these faculties is most decidedly manifested.
The instincts of the larger animals seem capable
of but slight modification. They are either ex¬
ercised in their full extent or not at all. A
bird, when its nest is pulled out of a bush,
though it should be laid uninjured close by,
never attempts to replace it in its situation ; it
contents itself with building another. But in¬
sects in similar contingencies often exhibit the
most ingenious resources, their instincts surpri¬
singly accommodating themselves to the new
circumstances in which they are placed, in a
manner more wonderful and incomprehensible
than the existence of the faculties themselves.”
This observation we support by various in¬
stances taken from the history of different in¬
sects ; but the most extraordinary are from the
societies of insects of which we now speak ;
and of these the following are only a specimen.
“ The combs of bees are always at an uniform
distance from each other, namely, about one-
third of an inch, which is just wide enough to
allow them to pass easily, and have access to
the young brood. On the approach of winter,
when their honey-cells are not sufficient in
number to contain all the stock, they elongate
them considerably, and thus increase their capa-
* Introduction to Entomology, vol. ii. p. 498
et seq.
t Introd. to Entomology, letter xvii.
c 2