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’NATIONAL SECULAR' SOCIETY
THE
NATURAL HISTORY OF INSTINCT.
By G. J. ROMANES, Esq., F.R.S.
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NSTINCT is a wide subject, presenting many
different sides of interest. To the naturalist
who studies the forms and habits of animals,
the phenomena of instinct are of interest
on their own account. Again, to the psychologist, who studies the phenomena of mind, the facts of
instinct are of interest as proving the possibility of know
ledge inborn or antecedent to individual experience.
Lastly, to the philosopher, who studies the mutual relation
of things in general, the facts of instinct are of interest
just because they prove the possibility of such inborn or
innate knowledge, and therefore because these facts bear
upon any theory of knowledge in general which his other
studies may lead him to form. This evening I propose
to restrict the subject of the lecture to the first of these
sides of interest, or the interest instinct presents to the
naturalist: the interest which the phenomena of instinct
present on their own account; therefore I have termed
the subject of the lecture “The Natural History of
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The Natural History of Instinct.
Instinct.” I shall endeavour to take a bird’s-eye view,
as it were, of all the instincts known to us, and I shall
select for special description those instances of animal in
stinct which appear to me most remarkable, or otherwise
most deserving of our attention. You wifi, then, under
stand that I shall have nothing to do with either the
psychology or the philosophy of instinct. Nevertheless,
it seems desirable at the outset that we should so far go
into the psychology of the subject as to understand exactly
what it is that we mean by instinct; because within the
limits of the English language there is perhaps no term
which has been used in a greater variety of meanings. In
ordinary conversation and in general literature we find in
stinct used as a term to name all the mental qualities of
animals taken collectively, to distinguish them from the
mental qualities of man, which are termed rational. This
popular classification, however, will not do, because there
is now no doubt in the mind of any competent naturalist
that the mind of an animal is constructed on the same
pattern as the mind of a man, the difference between the
two consisting merely in the difference of relative degree
in which instinctive faculties predominate in the animal
and the rational faculties in the man. What, then, shall
we use as a scientific definition of instinct 1 After a great
deal of consideration, I have myself put forward such a
definition. In the first place, instinctive actions are mani
festly adaptive actions. But not only are they adaptive:
they are likewise consciously adaptive; for if they were
not consciously adaptive, we should not be able to dis
tinguish between them and such adaptive actions as are
merely vital—such, for example, as the beating of our
�The Natural History of Instinct.
3
hearts. Instinctive action, therefore, differs from vital action
in not only being adaptive, but in being likewise consciously
adaptive. Again, instinctive action depends upon knowledge
which, as I have said, is inborn or innate, anterior to- in
dividual experience, and in this respect, you will perceive,
differing from reason, which always depends upon knowledge
gained by individual experience. Again, the knowledge
on which instinctive action depends is knowledge which
may not be knowledge of the relation between the means
employed and the ends attained. Innate, inborn knowledge
may not involve any rational acquaintance with the re
lation between the means employed and the ends attained.
And, lastly, instinctive actions are actions which are
performed by all individuals of the same species when placed
in similar circumstances. To gather up all the points in
this definition, therefore, we may say that instinct is a
term which is used to designate all those faculties of mind
that are concerned in conscious and adaptive actions
antecedent to individual experience, without necessary
knowledge of the relation between the means employed and
the ends attained, but similarly performed under similar
and frequently-recurring circumstances by all individuals
of the same species.
Now, I have taken the trouble to go into this definition,
partly for the sake of circumscribing the area which the pre
sent lecture is to cover, but partly, also, because my attention
has just been drawn to a very friendly article—friendly in
tone, and intelligent in its spirit—which appeared in the
Newcastle Daily Chronicle, of November 21st, 1885. The
writer of that article, after quoting this definition from
myself (which I have cut out of the newspaper)—quoted
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The Natural History of Instinct,
from a work of mine already published—remarks that if
I were in the position of a political candidate, instead of a
scientific lecturer, he would bother me with a few questions
on the subject of that definition. Well, I do not wish to
take any unfair advantage of my position as a scientific
lecturer, and therefore I will answer the question which he
has so courteously put. After quoting this definition, he
frames his question upon the concluding portion of it.
He asks, if it be true that actions called instinctive are
those *• similarly performed under similar and frequentlyrecurring circumstances by all the individuals of the same
species, ’ how do I account for the fact that in the case of
almost every instinct we meet with individual exceptions 1
My answer is, that in all these cases which he gives as
examples, and in all such cases it is possible to give as
examples, the individual exceptions are of the nature of im
perfections of animal instinct. But, obviously, if the instinct
is imperfect, it does not fall within my category of instinct.
It does not fall within my definition of instinct, simply
because as an instinct it is imperfect j or in other words, as
far as it is imperfect in individual cases, so far does it fail of
being an instinct, and so far does it fail to be covered by my
definition of instinct. The work of my own, from which
he quotes this definition, is a work on “ Animal Intel
ligence, and the object of that work is expressly stated to
be that of rendering only the natural history of instincts
without going in for the psychology of the subject. That
is to say, it merely states the facts of animal instinct,
without entering at all into any theory, either of origin,
correlation, or anything else of the kind. But that work
was only antecedent to another which has since been
�The Natural History of Instinct.
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published, and which is called, “ Mental Evolution in
Animals.” In that work I have gone fully into the whole
psychology and philosophy of instinct, and if my kindly
critic will do me the honour of turning to the pages of
that work I fancy he will find, not only his own question,
but also every other question that it is possible to suggest
in the way of difficulty, discussed with as much elaboration
as I think he is likely to care to pursue. I mention this
not only for his benefit, but also because I hope that any
of you who may not have seen that work, may likewise
do me the honour of getting it out of some of your circu
lating libraries; and I mention this, not because the work
happens to be written by myself, but simply because it is
the only work hitherto published which deals with the
whole philosophy of instinct from an evolutionary point
of view.
Trusting I have now made clear what it is I mean by
instinct, I will devote the rest of the lecture to selecting
those instances of the special display of instinct in the
animal kingdom which, as I have said, appear to me the
most remarkable. For this purpose I think it will be con
venient to further restrict myself, looking to the great
abundance of the materials, to those classes of animals in
which the phenomena of instinct occur with greatest richness
and abundance. I mean the invertebrate animals.
Taking first the case of larvae, or insects which have not
yet attained their perfect development—such, for instance,
as caterpillars—the instincts manifested by larvae are of
interest because they often display higher elaboration of
instinctive mechanism than occurs in the perfect condition
of the insect. There is a kind of larvae called the caddis2
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The Natural History of Instinct.
worm, which lives at the bottom of fresh water streams.
At the bottom of fresh water streams it constructs for
itself a tubular shell, fitting close to its worm-like body.
This tubular or cylindrical shell is constructed of a large
number of small particles of gravel, sand, bits of leaf, and
so forth, all glued together by a secretion from the animal’s
body. Now, it has been quite recently discovered by a
very competent observer, Mr. W. MacLachlan, F.R.S., and
principal entomologist in this country, that when the
caddis-worm finds its tubular shell becoming too heavy, so
that it has a difficulty in dragging it about the bottom of
the stream, it will glue into the structure small splinters of
wood, in order to cause the tubular dwelling to have less
specific gravity, to make it lighter, and therefore more easy
for the worm to drag about the bottom of the stream. On
the other hand, if the worm finds it has placed too much
wood in the structure, so that it is liable to the catastrophe
of floating to the surface, it will then search about for little
masses of sand or pebble, wherewith to increase the specific
gravity of its dwelling, and so adjust it to the specific
gravity of the water. There is a kind of caterpillar,
eight or ten of which live in company inside the fruit of
pomegranate. They eat out the fruit of the pomegranate
by degrees, and as they do so, the pomegranate is apt to
wither; when it withers, the stalk of the pomegranate is
apt to break, and allow the pomegranate to drop. Now, it
has been observed that in order to prevent this possible
catastrophe—it is not a necessary catastrophe, it does not
always happen that the pomegranate drops—these cater
pillars, before they begin to eat out the inside of the fruit,
carefully make a web, extending from the fruit to the
�The Natural History of Instinct.
7
branch, so as to act as a stalk in the event of the
natural stalk withering and allowing the fruit to drop,
were it not for the artificial stalk supplied by
the web. This foresight is very remarkable. There
is in the south of France, and also on the north coast
of Africa, a species of caterpillar which afterwards turns
into the Bombyx moth. The instincts presented by this
species of caterpillars are highly remarkable. In the
first place, they are gregarious. Colonies of some five
hundred or one thousand caterpillars live on the same tree.
They are pretty large, about as long as one’s little finger.
When they have eaten bare the leaves upon one tree, they
migrate to another, and they do this in what we may
call military order. That is to say, one caterpillar acts as
leader, and all the others follow him in Indian file, one
behind the other. So they march off, a long line of cater
pillars, yards in length. The head of caterpillar No. 2
touches the tail of caterpillar No. 1, and the tail of cater
pillar No. 2 touches the head of caterpillar No. 3, and so
forth, all the way down the line. Now, I had myself an
opportunity of observing these caterpillars, and found that
if I knocked out any one of the series, so as to cause an
interruption in this continuous line, the caterpillar in front
of the interruption immediately stopped, and began to wag
his head. Then the caterpillar in front of him likewise
stopped, and began to wag his head, and so on until all the
caterpillars in front of the point of interruption were at a
standstill, and all wagging their heads. Meanwhile, the
caterpillar behind the point of interruption continued his
march, and all the train behind him continued their march,
and as soon as the head of the caterpillar behind the point
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The Natural History of Instinct.
of interruption joined up, so as to touch the tail of the cater
pillar in front of the point of interruption, so soon did that
caterpillar cease to wag his head and begin to move, and then
the next ceased to wag his head and began to move, and so
on till the whole line was again in motion. The time re
quired for this to take place I found to be at the rate of about
one second per caterpillar. Now, if I removed the leader of
this kind of follow-my-leader train, the next one in the
series very rarely felt himself competent to undertake the
task of leadership, but he would fall back upon the rest of
the line, and the rest of the line, having lost their leader,
would double back as they came, and in the result the
whole line was thrown into helpless confusion—confusion
so hopeless, indeed, that eventually, from having been
an orderly line, they became a chaotic heap. After a
varying period, some one member of this republic seemed
to suppose it was time to begin to restore order, and
assumed the leadership; as soon as they found a leader,
like republics in general, they all followed in the wake.
I now tried the effect of removing the last member
of the series. The effect here of course was that there was
no other caterpillar left to join up the interruption; con
sequently, we ask how long the whole line will remain
stationary, wagging their heads'? Well, they remained
stationary for a very long time, but not for an indefinite
period of time. I think after a lapse of four or five
minutes they began to say, “ There is no use waiting any
longer,” and they gave up wagging their heads, and went on
again. But I thought it would be worth while to see
under these circumstances whether I could deceive the
caterpillar into supposing that I was a caterpillar. After
�The Natural History of Instinct.
9
removing the tail member of the series, I took a camel’s
hair brush and began gently to tickle the tail of the last in
order, and I found that the delusion succeeded. I was
able to deceive the caterpillar into supposing that I was
the caterpillar behind him, and he immediately stopped
wagging his head and began to move on, and I could keep
the whole line in motion so long as I continued to tickle
the tail of the caterpillar. There is another very remark
able instinct manifested by these caterpillars which has
only recently been observed by Lord Walsingham ; and by
his kindness I was able to see one of the extraordinary
structures produced. It is not a European, but an African
species. Here, when all the colony of these caterpillars
have occasion to pass into the pupae condition—the crysalis
state—they form what you may call a collective cocoon, to
accommodate the whole number. It is about the size of
a good large melon, and of the same shape ; at one end of
the melon there is a minute hole, in order to allow of the
exit of the moths when they come to maturity inside this
melon-shaped cocoon. Now, a remarkable feature of this
structure is, that if you dissect the melon-shaped mass, you
find inside that each caterpillar has weaved for itself a
separate cocoon. They all unite to weave the general, or
enveloping cocoon, while each one constructs a separate
cocoon for itself within the melon-shaped mass; and the
extraordinary fact is, that all these separate cocoons are
arranged around branch passages or corridors. All these
branch passages or corridors converge to the general
entrance hall, as it were, which leads out to the orifice,
or the door. So that you may liken the whole thing to
the state-rooms on board ship—rows of them along the
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The Natural History of Instinct.
corridors, and all opening out into the common exit. You
will agree with me in regarding this as one of the most ex
traordinary instincts that has ever been noticed when you
consider that if any one of these caterpillars should make
the smallest mistake, and build his cocoon slightly out of
its proper place, with relation to the others, he would
block up one of the corridors, and thereby prevent the
exit of any of the moths behind him, when those moths
came to maturity. Yet so perfect is the collective instinct
of all this mass of caterpillars, that in this complex
structure not one of the separate cocoons is built out of its
place so as to obstruct any one of these corridors. So
much for the intelligence of larvae.
Coming now to the order of animals where instincts occur
in the greatest profusion, and are of the most extraordinary
kind—you know, of course, that I refer to the ants. In
the first place, all the ants of every nest know each other
personally. This is a very remarkable fact when you
remember how many ants there are in a nest. It is still
more remarkable in the case of the so-called American ant
towns. In these ant towns there may be as many as from
1000 to 2000 nests, and each nest may be as much as four
feet or five feet high. Therefore, in each nest there are
thousands of individuals, and in the whole ant town the
individuals are to be numbered by millions. Well, every
one of these individuals know each other personally, so to
speak. Because if you remove any individual from one
part of the ant town to deposit him in another part, he is
recognised as a friend; whereas if you take any ant from
another ant town at a distance, and place him in this ant
town, he is immediately fallen upon and slain. Now, this
�The Natural History of Instinct.
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seems to be a most remarkable fact. Suppose we parallel
it in the case of ourselves. We should find it a very diffi
cult and precarious matter to distinguish a Frenchman
when he landed here, if we wanted to fall upon and slay
him. Even if there were no moral repugnance to such an
act, we should not be willing to take the responsibility of
killing a man from his personal appearance. The ants,
however, experience no difficulty. Something more remark
able still has been observed by Sir John Lubbock, a very
competent observer. He found that if you take away the
pupae or crysalis, or so-called ant eggs, out of the nest, and
hatch them away from the nest, and if you then return to
the nest the ants so hatched, these ants are recognised as
friends, although you will understand none of the ants in the
nest could ever possibly have seen them. More remarkable
still, he found that if you take away the queen ant before
she lays her eggs, and allow her to lay them in any other
place, and then return the ants so hatched to the original
nest, all the ants immediately recognise the progeny of the
queen as friends. Therefore, we must suppose that it is
blood relationship which these ants are in some way or
another able to distinguish. Another very interesting
feature of ant intelligence of an instinctive kind is the
power of communication. There is no doubt at all about
ants being able to communicate up to a certain point. You
can see them communicating by rubbing their antennae
together. The extent to which they are thus able to com
municate has also been investigated by Sir John Lubbock,
and he found that they could tell each other not only that
there was food to be found somewhere, but also the place
where the greatest amount of food was to be fallen in with,
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He did this by taking three glasses, and connecting them
with an ant nest by means of three tapes to act as road
ways. In one glass he put a large number of larvae, in
another of the glasses a very small number of larvae, and in
the third glass he put no larvae at all Then into each
of the three cups, or glasses, he placed a marked ant.
All three marked ants immediately went back over the
tapes to the ant nest. The one that came from the empty
glass brought out no friends, the one that went co the glass
containing the small number of pupae brought out a small
number of friends, while the one which went from the glass
containing a large number of pupae brought out a large
number of friends. If ants are able to tell each other
where the largest amount of food is to be found, however,
they are not able to tell each other the precise locality.
That is to say, it was necessary that the marked ants should
be allowed to act as guides or pioneers of their friends on
the way back, for if, while they were half way back, Sir
John Lubbock suddenly removed the marked ant, all the
others were at once bewildered, and did not know where to
go, so that we may say that they are able to tell each other
where there is a large quantity of food to be found. It is
a kind of “ Follow me; there is a quantity of food or eggs I
have found.” But they are not able to tell each other
where the eggs are, such as “ the first to the right, and the
second to the left,” and so on. There is another verv
remarkable instinct displayed by a large number of species
of ants that, namely, of keeping other insects for the pur
pose of furnishing them with a sweet secretion, of which
they are very fond. These other insects, or so-called aphides,
are somewhat larger than the ants. They regularly keep
�The Natural History of Instinct.
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these aphides to serve the function of milch cows. They
always milk these milch cows by striking them with their
antennae—a peculiar tickling action, which causes the aphides
to exude a sweet secretion, which the ant licks up. These
aphides the ants keep carefully in their own nests; some
species keep them outside, on the plants, and then they
build round them little mud chambers, or stables, or stalls.
These stalls have openings large enough to allow the ants
to go in and out, but not large enough to allow the aphides
to go in and out. They are, therefore, kept prisoners—or
in stables if you like. Now, Sir John Lubbock has made
the highly remarkable observation that there is one species
of ant which goes out in the month of October to seek for
the eggs of the aphides, which are laid upon daisies. Having
found the eggs, they take them into their nests, cherish
them there during the winter months, and hatch them out
in March. As soon as the young aphides are hatched out,
the ants convey them to the daisy plants again, for them to
feed. This is one of the most extraordinary instincts on record.
Another highly remarkable instinct displayed by ants is
the keeping of slaves. Three species of ants are in the
habit of enslaving other species of ants. The slave-making
species are of a red colour, and have a very avaricious
temper. The ants which are submitted to slavery, on the
other hand, are very properly of a black colour, and are
not so warlike in spirit. Now, when the nest of a red slave
making species have occasion to replenish the number of
their slaves, they send out scouts in various directions, in
order to seek for the slave nests. When the scout has
found a nest of these black ants, he goes back to the rest of
the red ants, and then the whole nest of red ants turn out
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The Natural History of Instinct.
in a swarm. They march in regular military order, naturally
following the lead of the scout until the scout brings them
to the nest of the black ants. As soon as this is the case,
the red ants fall upon the black ants in enormous numbers,
and a regular melee begins. Usually this battle terminates
unfavourably for the black ants. When it does so, the
red ants put a garrison into the nest of the black ants, and
take away all the eggs that belong to the black ants. These
eggs are conveyed home and hatched oq| in the nests of the
red ants, to act subsequently as slaves. The slave-making
ants become so dependent upon the services of these slaves,
that they not only do no work for themselves at all, beyond
the capture of slaves, but one species has gone so far in
their indolence that they are actually not able to feed them
selves, and require to be fed by their slaves. That is to
say, if you deprive these ants of their slaves, they all die of
starvation, even though at the same time you supply them
with their habitual food.
Still more remarkable, I think, than the habit of keeping
slaves, is the habit of keeping beasts of burden. This habit
has been discovered by the naturalist Audubon, a very great
observer, and he vouches for the fact that in the Brazilian
forests there is a species of ant which has occasion to
convey leaves from trees to its nest, as we shall see sub
sequently. Audubon declares that he has repeatedly seen
this species of ant enslave another and a larger kind of
insect, which is not an ant at all, but a kind of bug. This
large, strong bug is regularly driven by the ants to carry the
loads of leaves from the trees to the nest.
Another highly remarkable fact about the domestic
economy of ants is that they not only enslave other animals
�Ths Natural History of Instinct.
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for the purpose of doing work, but they also keep a number
of other slaves which serve no function at all in the economy
of the hive, and therefore appear to be kept by the ants
merely for the sake of gratifying some kind of caprice.
That is to say, ants have power to keep these other kinds
of insects just for the same reason, or absence of reason,
that we ourselves keep domestic pets. There are thirty or
forty different species of beetle that are made pets by the
ants.
Another set of habits exhibited by ants are very, I
think very, interesting, as showing a resemblance to the
social condition of man; or, perhaps, some of us may
think, as not showing such a resemblance. I mean in
habits of personal cleanliness. All insects, as you are
aware, are very scrupulous about keeping themselves clean.
You can always see the blue-bottle assiduously at work
when it seems he is already as much polished up as there is
any occasion for. The remarkable thing about the ants is
that they clean one another. The ant that feels in need of
a brush-up goes to a companion ant and makes a gesture of
supplication, which is very expressive. He kneels down
and puts up his fore-legs, and the supplicated ant immedi
ately sets to work and brushes him down. When the
cleaning process is over, the relations are reversed, on the
principle that one good turn deserves another.
Another point in which ants resemble ourselves is that
of requiring sleep. The sleep lasts for three or four hours
at a time; and during the time they are asleep they have
been observed by Belt, who is a good observer, and by
McCook, in America, to move their jaws, and feelers, and
mandibles in the same way as we see a dog twitch his mouth,
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The Natural History of Instinct.
nose, and feet, when asleep. Therefore these motions are
very suggestive of the ant dreaming. Upon awakening,
also, these ants have a habit of stretching their limbs as we
do, and often of opening their mouths and gaping. In all
these respects there is a wonderful similarity to ourselves.
Again, as to habits of play or recreation. These ants
have habits of play and recreation, just like ourselves; and
when they play thus, they run about and chase each other
round grass stalks, stand on their hind-legs, and have
wrestling matches ; they play hide-and seek, and have mimic
fights, and in all sorts of ways behave just like athletes.
Lastly, under the head of the general habits of ants, I
may notice perhaps the one which is most remarkable—
namely, that of conducting funerals. All the ants have a habit
of taking away the dead ones from the nest and dragging
them a long distance, but it is only some species which have
the habit of conducting regular funerals. It has been
alleged by two or three very good observers, that the ants
will form regular processions, whereby to do, as it were, due
honour to their dead. And these processions are always
destined for one particular locality, which is the ants’
cemetery. Here the dead body of the ant is deposited in
its last resting-place with all due honours apparently. I
say with all due honours, because in the case of the slave
making species, great care is taken not to bury slaves in the
same cemetery as the masters.
So much as to the general habits of ants. Taking one
or two species which display special instincts of a highly
remarkable kind, I will first consider one which was noticed
longest ago, by a naturalist who seems to have shown
himself a good authority—Solomon.
He is a good
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authority as a naturalist, because his observations, though
long supposed in the matter of ants to be what the
Americans call “ bunkum,” have turned out to be perfectly
true. I hope you all know the passage in Proverbs—“ Go
to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, and be wise;
which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her
meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.”
This observation was long discredited, and was especially
denied by a great naturalist, Huber, who paid more atten
tion than anybody else to the habits of ants and bees. But
both Solomon and Huber were right. The difference or
discrepancy in their statements arose merely from the
difference in their geographical positions. It is only in one
part of Europe that the ants display this harvesting
instinct at all. They display it in Palestine, and no doubt
Solomon saw it. It has also been noticed now that there
is a species in the New World which displays it. In all
these cases, the instinct is very much the same. It consists
in the ants first of all cutting roadways from the nest to
the ant fields. These roadways diverge in various direc
tions, and along these roadways the ants run in a double
line. The line outgoing is empty-handed ; the line incoming
is laden with grain. When the empty-handed line reach
the grass fields, they disperse and pick up the grains which
have fallen from the grass ; or else they run up the stalks,
cut away the grains which have ripened, and then either
carry them down the grass stalks themselves or throw
them down to their comrades beneath, thus showing an
appreciation of the principle of a division of labour. The
incoming train carry the grain in their jaws, and when
they arrive at the ant-hill, it is put into a regular granary,
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The Natural History of Instinct.
excavated below the ground for the purpose. In some way
which is not at all understood, in these granaries the grain
does not sprout. It is exposed to all the conditions
favourable for sprouting—in a damp or moist soil not far
below the surface. Well, as a matter of fact, it does not
sprout. If it did, the ants would be deprived of nourish
ment. But what it is that the ants do to prevent the
sprouting nobody has yet been able to discover. It is
certain, however, that they take great pains to prevent the
seed from getting too wet, thereby being rendered more
apt to sprout. This is certain; because it has been
observed that if the grain become too wet, the ants take it
out of the granary and sun it, in order that it may be
dried. Moreover, it is noticed that if for any reason one
particular grain does begin to sprout, the ants immediately
stop the further progress of the sprouting by nipping off
the tip of the radical. This is a very remarkable fact,
because although it is well known to botanists and hor
ticulturists that by nipping off the tip of the radical you
prevent the further germination of the seed, I doubt if it is
known to anybody here who does not happen to be a
botanist or horticulturist. Yet it is well known to those
ants. A species of the harvest-ant in Texas, in America,
exhibits a further refinement of this instinct, so to speak.
Because Dr. Lincecum, who was the first to observe ants in
that continent, positively declared, as the result of his own
observations, that the harvesting ant begins by cutting
down the prairie grass as a clearing, just as a colonist does.
He declared that the ants go forth into the prairie to seek
for the seeds of a kind of grass of which they are par
ticularly fond, and that they take these seeds to the clearing,
�The Natural History of Instinct.
19
and there actually sow them, for the purpose six months
afterwards of reaping the grain which is the produce of
their agriculture.
• Of course this is one of the most remarkable instincts on
record, and it was thought desirable that it should be con
firmed. Consequently, McCook went to Texas for the
express purpose of corroborating Lincecum’s observations.
Well, he corroborated all his observations with one ex
ception—of the sowing of this plant. The reason why he
did not confirm that observation was because he went to
Texas at a time of the year when the sowing did not take
place. He went to Texas at the time of the year when the
ant-rice was growing, and he confirmed Lincecum to the ex
tent of saying that he saw the ant-rice growing on the
patches here and there, and growing nowhere else in
patches like that throughout the prairie. Therefore we
cannot say Lincecum has been actually corroborated in his
observations as to the sowing • but at the same time, it is
not fair to Lincecum, who is now dead, to say, as has been
said in some quarters, that McCook has contradicted his
observations. He has only gone there at a time of the
year when it was not possible for him to corroborate the
observations. Therefore I think Lincecum’s statements are
entitled to credence, because he was fully aware of the ex
traordinary nature of instinct himself, and he wrote to
Darwin letter after letter on the subject, always insisting
on the sowing of the plant rice. If this is the case, it is
said the ant is entitled to be called not only a harvesting
ant, but an agricultural ant.
Again, there is another species of ant we may similarly,
with as much appropriateness, term the horticultural ant.
�20
The Natteral History of Instinct.
This is the one which, as I have said before, cuts leaves off
the trees. They bite off the grass and throw it down,
knots below receiving it. This they convey to their nests,
and then lay it in folds one above the other, in order to
constitute a kind of soil upon which there subsequently
grows a kind of fungus, upon which they feed. Their
object in collecting the leaves is to supply a soil for the
growth of the fungus.
Lastly, there is another kind of ant which we may call
the military ant. One species belongs to the Amazon,
and another species is found in Central Africa. These
animals display some of the most remarkable instincts in
the animal kingdom, and which are all in the direction of
military organisation. They have no fixed abode, but go
about in enormous armies, comprising thousands of in
dividuals, and they march in regular military order—one
species in the form of a phalanx, and another in the form
of a column.
On each side of the column there are always
running backwards and forwards a comparatively small
number of individual ants, somewhat different in shape,
and these evidently serve the functions of officers. They
run about along the outside of the column, and give
directions for dressing up, and so on, whenever they see
there is any want of order, and generally conduct the
movements of the host. From each side of the host there
proceeds a number of scouts, who scour the country on all
sides for a certain distance ; and when they come upon any
kind of booty, such as a wasp’s nest, they return to the
main host to give the information. The direction of march
is altered, the hordes of military ants swarm upon the
wasps’ nest, or ants’ nest, or whatever it is, and there is no
�The Natural History of Instinct.
21
animal in the creation that can withstand the assault.
The only chance is to cut and run.
The instincts manifested by these animals are highly
remarkable—so much so, that the whole lecture might have
been devoted to this one species alone. But I will only
mention one other fact in connection with them, and that is
their habit of making bridges when they come to a stream ;
I do not mean a wide stream, but a rill, which they might
think it desirable to cross. They make a sort of raft to
begin with, and a clump of ants floats upon the surface of
the stream. They join hands with the ants on shore, and
thus allow themselves to be carried across the stream by
the action of the current. This is a desperate resort, of
course, because if the communications with the shore were
to break off, they would all be drowned. They do not
adopt this course if they can help it; they run up and down
a long way to see if there is not any natural bridge,
accidentally constructed by the fall of a piece of timber
across the water. If they find such, which is not wide
enough to admit of the column advancing except in single
or Indian file, they save time—and it is a very remarkable
thing, as showing the military organisation—by increasing
the width with their own bodies; that is to say, they stick
three or four deep upon each side, so that the other ants
may run over their backs.
Coming now to bees, this branch of the lecture will not
take very long, because the instincts of bees are closely
analagous to those of ants. The cell-making instinct is the
greatest exception; but without describing the exact method,
I may say that Mr. Darwin has proved that the cell-making
instinct depends upon certain mechanical principles. Buffon
�22
The Natural History of Instinct.
Iona: ago sought to account for the hexagonal form of the
cells by an hypothesis of mutual pressure. This hypothesis
was sustained by such a physical analogy as the blowing of
a crowd of soap-bubbles in a cup. Buffon said that the
hexagonal cells of the bee are produced by the reciprocal
pressure of the cylindrical bodies of these insects against
each other. This turns out to have been not very wide of
the mark. Darwin has proved by experiments that this
hypothesis was the true one—that the bees eat out the cells
from the solid cake of wax, and the instinct is concerned in
the bees standing at sufficient distance from one another.
The sense of direction is a very interesting fact. It has
always been supposed that bees and wasps have some sense
of direction, but that it is of some mysterious nature, and
did not depend upon the recognition of land marks. This
idea is the foundation of the popular saying that the quickest
way is the bee-line. It occurred independently to Sir John
Lubbock and to myself, last year, to try some experiments
on the subject, and we both got the same results, though
working independently. The way I worked was to place
a bee-hive in a room with a window which I could open or
shut. I then allowed the bees to get well acquainted with
the locality; and after they had been in the room for about
a fortnight, one night I shut the window—after all the bees,
you understand, had gone home for the night. Then in
front of the exit-hole of the bee-hive I slipped a glass shutter.
When I came down in the morning, all the bees were im
prisoned in the hive ; they were buzzing about the inside of
the glass shutter, as if they could not think what the dickens
was the matter with the hive, as they could see through
the glass shutter well, and could not get out. Then I
�The Natural History of Instinct.
23
opened up the glass shutter and allowed about twenty bees
to escape, and then shut it down again. The twenty bees
that escaped immediately flew to the window, but it was
closed. I was, therefore, able to get these twenty bees and
place them in a box. I then spread a lot of bird lime on
the front of the hive, where the bees would come home, and
left the glass shutter closed, and the window open. I took
my twenty bees in a box out to sea—the house being near
the sea—a good way from the land, and let them go. Now
you understand that if any of these bees came home, they
would be caught upon the bird lime, and I should see them.
As a matter of fact, none of the bees came back. Then I
tried another lot in the same way, but let them go nearer
home, on the sea shore; but none came back. I found
they never could come back unless I let them go in the
flower garden, near the house. These bees were always in
the habit of going to the flower garden, and they knew
their way back, and were caught on the bird lime. If I
took them anywhere two hundred yards in the direction of
the sea, where they were not accustomed to go, they could
not find their way back, proving that the bees find their
way back by observation of land marks, and not by any
mysterious sense of direction.
I have tried the same experiments with ants in England
and in Germany, with the same result, that they are
completely lost if you take them more than a certain
distance from the nest, beyond the distance that they know
by personal observation.
To give an example of only one other instinct, I think I
will mention what appears to me to be the most remark
able instinct in the animal kingdom. A species of wasp,
�24
The Natural History of Instinct.
or wasp-like animal, called the sphex, lays up for its young
a store of insects for them to prey upon when they are
hatched out. The sphex insect stings the insects which
it lays up for food in order partly to paralyse them: it
does not kill them, because if they were killed they would
decay before the eggs are hatched out into grubs, and
would be no use as food to the grubs. The sphex insect
therefore stings the prey only in a certain part of the body,
where there is a large accumulation of nerve centres. It
stings the spider, for instance, in the part of the body
where there is the largest supply of nerve centres. The
effect of stinging the nerve centres is to paralyse without
killing him. It is a very remarkable fact that the sphex
should have discovered this peculiarity. Still more re
markable, however, is that species of sphex which preys
upon grasshoppers. It is needful to sting the grasshopper
in three different parts of the body in order to produce
this effect, and this is done. Lastly, there is another
species of sphex which preys upon caterpillars; and here
the nervous system is still more elongated, and it is actually
necessary that the sphex should pierce the caterpillar in
nine different parts of the body, each one very localised,
and yet the sphex actually stings the caterpillar in those
nine particular points.
This, I think, is the most remarkable instinct in the
animal kingdom, because it appears to display some know
ledge—or something which serves the same purpose—both
of the anatomy and of the physiology of the insects on
which they prey.
Printed by Walter Scott, “ The Kenilworth Press," Felling. Newcastle.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The natural history of instinct
Creator
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Romanes, George John [1848-1894]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 24 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Imprint supplied from British Library record. Printed by Walter Scott, "The Kenilworth Press". Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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[Sunday Lecture Society]
Date
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[1886]
Identifier
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N554
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Natural history
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The natural history of instinct), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Animal Behaviour
Instinct
NSS