done upon this part of the subject. If you shake caterpillars off a tree in every direction, they instantly turn round and climb up, though they had never formerly been on the surface of the ground. This is a very striking instance of instinct. The caterpillar finds its food, and is nourished, upon the tree, and not upon the ground; but surely the caterpillar can never tell that such an exertion is necessary to its salvation; and therefore, it acts not from rational motives, but from blind impulse. Ants and beavers lay up magazines. Where do they get their knowledge that it will not be so easy to collect food in rainy weather as it is in the summer? Men and women know these things, because their grandpapas and grandmammas have told them so : ants, hatched from the egg artificially, or birds hatched in this manner, have all this knowledge by intuition, without the smallest communication with any of their relations. Now, observe what the solitary wasp does; she digs several holes in the sand, in each of which she deposits an egg, though she certainly knows not that an animal is deposited in that egg, and still less that this animal must be nourished with other animals. She collects a few green flies, rolls them up neatly in separate parcels (like Bologna sausages), and stuffs one parcel into each hole where an egg is deposited. When the wasp-worm is hatched, it finds a store of provisions ready made; and, what is most curious, the quantity allotted to each, is exactly sufficient to support it, till it attains the period of wasphood, and can provide for itself. This instinct of the parent wasp is the more remarkable, as it does not feed upon flesh itself. Here the little creature has never seen its parent; for, by the time it is born, the parent is always eaten by sparrows and yet, without the slightest education, or previous experience, it does everything that the parent did before it. Now the objectors to the doctrine of instinct may say may say what they please, but young tailors have

a new-born

no intuitive mode of making pantaloons; mercer cannot measure diaper; - Nature teaches a cook's daughter nothing about sippets. All these things require with us seven years' apprenticeship; but insects are like Molière's persons of quality, they know every thing, (as Molière says,) without having learnt anything. "Les gens de qualité savent tout, sans avoir rien appris."

The most strenuous objector to these histories of the singular and untaught instincts of animals, is the Comte de Buffon; and he has been particularly severe upon bees, whose reputation for architecture and civil economy he has attempted entirely to overthrow. Of Maclaurin's discovery of the angle, he takes no notice, and returns no answer to it; neither does he condescend to notice the particular manner in which the comb is placed back to back. His observations upon the hexagonal form of the cell, appear to me, I confess, for so great a man, very singular. "The hexagonal form of "the cells of the bee, which have been the subject of so "much admiration, furnish an additional proof of the stupidity of these insects. This figure, though ex

tremely regular, is nothing but a mechanical result, "which is often exhibited in the rudest productions of "nature. Crystals, and several other stones, as well as "particular salts, constantly assume this figure. The "small scales in the skin of the roussete, or great "Ternate bat, are hexagonal, because each scale when "growing obstructs the progress of its neighbour, and "tends to occupy as much space as possible. We like"wise find these hexagons in the second stomachs of "some ruminating animals; in certain seeds, capsules, "and flowers. If we fill a vessel with cylindrical grain,

and, after filling up the interstices with water, shut it "close up, and boil the water, all these cylinders will "become hexagonal columns. The reason is obvious, " and purely mechanical. Each cylindrical grain tends,

"by its swelling, to occupy as much space as possible in "the limited dimensions of the hive: and therefore, as "the bodies of the bees are cylindrical, they must neces"sarily make their cells hexagonal, from the reciprocal "obstruction they give to each other.”

In the case of the boiled grain, the vessel is close; but the comb, I fancy, in common bee-hives, by no means extends itself through the whole dimensions of the straw hut; therefore, there is no pressure on the outside: neither do I see how there is any pressure from within, because the cell is made before the young bee is put in it, and the very first plan and ground-work of each cell is the hexagon, long before the pressure of body in the old bee can effect it. Besides, it really seems quite ludicrous to suppose, that such extraordinary regularity can be produced by the accidental pushing and scrambling of 10,000 insects, working one at one moment at this cell, then flying off to a cowslip, then going to another cell, then appointed to digest wax for the public good. Make the slightest inequality in the pushing, let one bee neglect to scramble for a single instant, or let one be scraping away while the other is adding, and the whole regularity is immediately destroyed, without the possibility of restoring it. And if they did push and scramble with this wonderful metre and rhythm, instead of destroying the wonder of the instinct, it would be increasing it. If there be any necessary connection between the hexagon and this origin of its formation, why do not wasps and ants deposit their nests in hexagons as perfect? or why does not the insect that works the coral? The real fact seems to be, that Nature has originally determined, with scrupulous precision, how every animal shall breed and build; and has confined them to a particular shape, as much as to a particular position. The wasp takes one form, the bee another, the chaffinch another, the robin-redbreast another. Nature has chosen that some animals should

be more accurate and fine in their habits; others, more careless, lax, and inattentive. Upon some, she seems to have bestowed vast attention; and to have sketched out others in a moment, and turned them adrift. The house-fly skims about, perches upon a window or a nose, breakfasts and sups with you, lays his eggs upon your white cotton stockings, runs into the first hole in the wall when it is cold, and perishes with as much unconcern as he lives. The bees, (as is commonly said of them, and as is strictly true,) do live together in a city, with a common object. It has pleased their Maker, that their food should be prepared with considerable labour and art; and their houses constructed with the greatest attention to durability and convenience. What is there in all this, that should make Buffon so angry or sceptical? Cannot He who made man, make a miracle one thousand times less miraculous than man? If He have implanted in our nature one or two stimuli which are sufficient, in the progress of life, gradually to unfold the soul that lies hidden within us, why may He not have given to another class of animals a great step at first, if He resolved that that should be the only progress they ever were to make in their momentary existence? But there is no use in putting questions why Providence may not have done this, or done that. Providence has done it! There are the bees, and there the comb; - there are the rafters, and there is the floor, and there is Colin Maclaurin, with his angle! and get rid of it how you can; and if you are determined to get rid of it, you had better account for the formation of a hive in some more sensible manner, than the pushing and scrambling of Buffon. When I call that principle upon which the bees or any other animals proceed to their labours, the principle of instinct, I only mean to say it is not a principle of reason. However the knowledge is gained, it is not gained as our knowledge is gained. It is not gained by experience, or imitation, for I have cited cases of birds

and bees that have never seen nest, or cell, who have made one and the other, as if they were perfectly acquainted with them. It cannot be invention, or the adaptation of means to ends; because, as the animal works before he knows what event is going to happen, he cannot know what the end is, to which he is accommodating the means: and if he be actuated by any other principle than these, the generation of ideas in animals is (contrary to the doctrine of Condillac) very different from the generation of ideas in men.

All the wonderful instincts of animals, which, in my humble opinion, are proved beyond a doubt, and the belief in which, has not decreased with the increase of science and investigation, — all these instincts are given them only for the combination or preservation of their species. If they had not these instincts, they would be swept off the earth in an instant. This bee, that understands architecture so well, is as stupid as a pebblestone, out of his own particular business of making honey; and, with all his talents, he only exists that boys may eat his labours, and poets sing about them. Ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias. A peasant girl of ten years old, puts the whole republic to death with a little smoke; their palaces are turned into candles, and every clergyman's wife makes mead-wine of the honey; and there is an end of the glory and wisdom of the bees! Whereas, man has talents that have no sort of reference to his existence; and without which, his species might remain upon earth in the same safety as if they had them not. The bee works at that particular angle which saves most time and labour; and the boasted edifice he is constructing is only for his egg: but Somerset House, and Blenheim, and the Louvre, have nothing to do with breeding. Epic poems, and Apollo Belvideres, and Venus de Medicis, have nothing to do with living and eating. We might have discovered pig-nuts without the Royal Society, and gathered acorns without reasoning