opposite wall with sufficient force to make it rebound; and he then, without difficulty, secured it." If we can believe that this extraordinary action was any thing but an ebullition of anger which led him to puff away the root which he could not secure,—that this half-reasoning animal, as the elephant has been called, really intended the potato to rebound within_his reach, it is impossible to deny the justice of Mr. Jesse's conclusion, that it could not be instinct which taught him to procure his food in this manner; and that it must, therefore, have been reason which enabled him to be so good a judge of cause and effect."

In some of the insect tribes, there seems to be an extraordinary faculty, which, if it can be called instinct, surely approaches to the highest faculty possessed by man,-I mean the power of communicating information by some natural language. Huber affirms, "that Nature has given to ants a language of communication, by the contact of their antennæ; and that, with these organs, they are enabled to render mutual assistance in their labors and in their dangers, discover again their route when they have lost it, and make each other acquainted with their necessities." This power seems to be confirmed by what occurred to Dr. Franklin. Upon discovering a number of ants regaling themselves with some treacle in one of his cupboards, he put them to the rout, and then suspended the pot of treacle by a string from the ceiling. He imagined that he had put the whole army to flight, but was surprised to see a single ant quit the pot, climb up the string, cross the ceiling, and regain its nest. In less than half an hour, several of its companions sallied forth, traversed the ceiling, and reached the repository, which they constantly revisited, till the treacle was consumed. The same power of communication belongs also to bees and wasps; as may be proved by any one who carefully attends to their habits. This is their language, not of articulate sounds, indeed, but of signs,a language which, as Jesse observes, "we can have no doubt is perfectly suited to them, adding, we know not how much, to their happiness and enjoyments, and fur

nishing another proof that there is a God all-mighty, allwise, and all-good, who has 'ornamented the universe' with so many objects of delightful contemplation, that we may see Him in all his works, and learn, not only to fear Him for his power, but to love Him for the care which He takes of us, and of all his created beings." Wheth

er this power of communication be rational or instinctive, it is obviously only suited to be useful to a being possessed, at least to a certain extent, of intellectual faculties, of the power of forming designs,-of combining, with others, to execute them,-of accommodating itself to circumstances, and, therefore, of remembering, of comparing, of judging, and of resolving. These are assuredly acts of reasoning; at least, I know not under what other category to arrange them.

The instance which Dr. Darwin gives of a wasp, noticed by himself, is in point. As he was walking one day in his garden, he perceived a wasp upon the gravel walk, with a large fly, nearly as big as itself, which it had caught. Kneeling down, he distinctly saw it cut off the head and abdomen, and then, taking up with its feet the trunk or middle portion of the body, to which the wings remained attached, fly away; but a breeze of wind, acting on the wings of the fly, turned round the wasp, with its burden, and impeded its progress. Upon this, it alighted again on the gravel walk, deliberately sawed off, first one wing, and then another, and having thus removed the cause of its embarrassment, flew off with its booty.

Here we have contrivance, and recontrivance; a resolution accommodated to the case, judiciously formed and executed; and, on the discovery of a new impediment, a new plan adopted, by which final success was obtained. There is, undoubtedly, something more than instinct in all this. And yet we call the wasp a despica

ble and hateful insect!

There is, I am well aware, a great reluctance in some minds to admit that any of the lower animals can be gifted with a faculty superior to blind unreasoning instinct. It is imagined that this would be to confound,

I.

15

VII.

man with the brutes, and thus to deprive him of that distinctive superiority on which he founds his strongest argument for the immortality of the human soul. Of such a consequence, I have no fear. It is not on natural arguments that the Christian's hope of future happiness is chiefly founded, but on that gospel, which has "brought life and immortality to light." Yet, I freely admit, that the argument from natural religion is satisfactory as a proof of the coincidence of revelation with the rational expectations, and the analogical reasonings, of man. But these expectations and reasonings are founded on stronger grounds than that of the absence of every thing approaching to reason among the lower animals, otherwise, I fear, they could not be readily sustained. Whatever

may be their strength, however, it is delightful to know that our assurance comes from a higher source, and that we are not reduced, like one of the most enlightened and virtuous of heathens, to end all our anxious arguments on this most important subject, with the feeble and doubting conclusion, "Quod, si in hoc erro, libenter erro."* ["If in this I am in error, I am content to err."]

SEVENTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

HYBERNATION OF INSECTS.-EGGS.

In attending to the state of animated nature in winter, as compared with that of summer, few things are more striking than the almost total disappearance, during the former season, of all the insect tribes. In the warmth and sunshine of the summer months, all Nature was instinct with life; and the abundance and variety of the more minute animals could not fail to attract the observation, and excite the wonder, of all who have eyes to The bee, the dragon-fly, the butterfly, the gnat,

see.

* Cicero.

and the midge, in all their varieties, with myriads of flies of other species, seemed to communicate life and enjoyment to the very air we breathed; while the worm, the beetle, the ant, the caterpillar, the spider, and innumerable other creatures, some of them too minute to be examined without the assistance of art, swarmed on every flower we plucked, and animated the very dust beneath our feet. Where now is all this busy world? Tribe after tribe, they have vanished from our view; and even in days of balmiest air, and brightest sunshine, we seek for them in vain. Has the breath of winter pierced through their tiny forms, and frozen the current of life at its source? And, if so, by what process of reproduction shall all their various species be reanimated in the returning spring? The inquiry is at once interesting and useful; and here, again, we shall have occasion to admire the inexhaustible resources of Divine intelligence.

Of some insect families, it is known, that all the individuals are destined to perish before the cold of winter arrives. The natural term of their existence is comprised within the span of a few months; and their periods of youth, of vigor, and of decay, nay, of resuscitation under new forms, and of the various stages of their second or even third state of existence, have all been accomplished during the season of genial warmth: so that they naturally cease to exist before the heat which cherished them, and the food which sustained them, are withdrawn. Their modes of life will more properly form the subject of attention at another season; but at present we have to inquire into the provision of Providence, by which the various species are preserved after the whole race has ceased to live.

As the principle of equivocal generation is nearly exploded from natural history, it will readily be conjectured that the Creator must have provided for the preservation of the future generations of these animals by means of their eggs; and this, in reality, is the case. There are various conditions, however, that require to be fulfilled, before this could be successfully accomplished. Not to advert, at present, to the wonderful but familiar

contrivance of an egg containing the embryo of the future animal, a contrivance which shall afterwards be considered, it is to be remarked that, in the present instance, the egg must be endued with the quality of preserving its principle of vitality for several months, in circumstances which would have proved fatal to the animal itself; that it must only produce the living creature when the wintry storms are past, and when those vegetable substances have begun to appear, on which that creature can subsist; and, that it must be so situated, and so endowed, as to be able, when animated, to find its way to the open air, and to its natural food. If any one of these conditions were wanting, it is sufficiently apparent that the species must perish.

Now, let us take an instance, and see what actually Occurs. I select the case of the gipsy-moth, which I abridge from the article Insect Transformations, in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge.' The female of

this insect has her body thickly covered with a soft down, of a hair-brown color, apparently for the express purpose of enabling her to protect her eggs during winter ; and she follows the impulse of her nature, in a manner well worthy of notice. Having emerged from her pupacase in the month of August, she enjoys life for a few days, and then prepares for the continuation of her species, after which she quickly dies. She places herself on the trunk of an oak or elm, invariably with her head downwards. Having made a bed or nest of down, by tearing it from her body, she lays an egg in it; and this egg being covered with adhesive gluten, attaches around it all the hairs of the down with which it comes in contact, and also sticks to the bark of the tree, from its being pushed home. Proceeding in this manner, she continues for several hours adding to the mass; but she does not, in general, finish the operation in less than two days, indulging in occasional rests. At intervals, she takes care to protect the eggs placed in the heap, which is made in a conical shape, with an exterior covering of the same down and, it is not a little remarkable, that in the external coping, which is designed to keep out the winter