I shall adduce another instance in support of my position that insects are endowed with reason, and that they mutually communicate and receive information. "A German artist of strict veracity, states, that in his journey through Italy, he was an eye-witness to the following occurrence. He observed a species of Scarabæus busily engaged, in making for the reception of its egg a pellet of dung, which when finished, the insect rolled to the summit of a hillock, and repeatedly suffered it to tumble down the slope, apparently for the purpose of consolidating the pellet by the adhesion of earth to it in its rotating motion. During this process, the pellet unluckily fell into a hole, out of which the beetle was unable to extricate it. After several ineffectual attempts, the insect went to an adjoining heap of dung, and soon returned with three companions. All four applied their united strength to the pellet, and at length succeeded in pushing it out, when the three assistant beetles left the spot, and returned to their own quarters[X].”
[X] Kirby and Spence, vol. ii. p. 522.
Mr. Hunter speaks rather sarcastically, upon the subject of reason being one of the attributes of insects. “Reason,” says he, “has been ascribed to bees; they have been supposed to be legislators, and even mathematicians; and though there is some show of reason for these suppositions, there is much more of imagination.” To show how far the excursive fancy of apiarians had sometimes carried them, Mr. H. selected a very unfortunate instance, namely, the assertion, as he calls it, that workers’ eggs may be converted into queens,—a fact which has since been established by a series of the most satisfactory experiments. Dr. Virey, in his Nouvelle Dictionnaire d’Histoire Naturelle, denies that insects possess any portion of intellect, and attributes all their operations to mere instinct, which he considers as the result of pure mechanism, depending upon the construction of their nervous systems, in the same manner as the tune played upon a barrel organ, is dependent on the notes which the cylinder successively presents to its keys. Des Cartes, and others before him, held a similar opinion, considering insects as being simply susceptible of external impressions, and through the medium of that susceptibility stimulated to act. If this doctrine be correct, instinct is possessed alike by animals and vegetables; in short by every thing that has life, the difference being not in quality, but in quantity.
Buffon attempted to explain the phænomena of insect life by the simple laws of mechanism, conceding to the insects at the same time a power of distinguishing and choosing between pleasure and pain. Some have even ventured to assert that the invariable exactness of the cell-work of bees is a proof of their stupidity, and “that the wonders of the honey’d reign,” no more bespeak the agency of mind or intellect, than the configuration of salts into their respective crystals.
“Shall then proud sophists arrogant and vain.
Spurn all the wonders of the honey’d reign.
And bid alike one mindless influence own
The social bee, and crystallizing stone?
Each link they trace in animation’s round,
Dashes their poison’d chalice to the ground.”
Evans.
If this theory respecting insects were just, it should elucidate all the phenomena which it undertakes to explain, otherwise it is injurious to science. Examination will prove it to be a mere hypothetical opinion, ingenious, and at first sight plausible, but completely unsatisfactory. This theory is the natural consequence of denying to insects any portion of intellect, and its erroneousness is shown by their capability of instruction. Instinct itself cannot be a purely mechanical process, or it would be incapable of modification, and would, under like circumstances, always act in the same manner. Sir Joseph Banks’s spider that, on being crippled, changed from a sedentary web-weaver to a hunter, is an instance of modified instinct[Y]. The well known fact that birds build their nests differently, where climate and other circumstances require a variation, is another instance. A dog may be restrained from obeying its instincts, by the intimidating recollection of a beating which it had formerly received; a bee, if alarmed, will quit the nectary of a flower:—here the intellect of the creatures counteracts their instincts. There are other instances in which the intellect appears to direct the instincts. When the bee makes excursive flights in quest of pasture, its senses serve to guide it, and enable it, by the aid of memory, to retrace its passage home again. At the conclusion of its outward and homeward journeys, its instincts immediately begin to operate; in the one case, teaching it to imbibe nectar, collect pollen, &c.; in the other, to store and apply those materials to their respective uses.
[Y] The account of this spider was sent to Dr. Leach by Sir Joseph Banks. An interesting history of it is given in the Linnæan Transactions, vol. ii. page 393. It had lost five of its legs, which were afterwards reproduced, but the new legs were shorter than those for which they were substituted.
M. Reimar has denied that the lower animals possess memory, properly so called; and has given it as his opinion, that they are only influenced by past events, in consequence of having present objects before them,—never by reflection or knowledge of the past, as being past. But that, with them, a former impression may be renewed, without being recollected; that it is thus rendered present to the imagination, but has no place in the memory. For arguments and instances in support of their being endowed with memory, see [page 260]. (Organs of Sensation.)