city, subsists in conjunction with great stupidity, even in relation to the same subject. "A chymical operation," says Addison, "could not be followed with greater art or diligence, than is seen in hatching a chicken: yet is the process carried on without the least glimmering of thought or common sense. The hen will mistake a piece of chalk for an egg; is insensible of the increase or diminution of their number; does not distinguish between her own and those of another species; is frightened when her supposititious breed of ducklings take the water."

But it will be said, that what reason could not do for the bird, observation, or instruction, or tradition, might. Now if it be true, that a couple of sparrows, brought up from the first in a state of separation from all other birds, would build their nest, and brood upon their eggs, then there is an end of this solution. What can be the traditionary knowledge of a chicken hatched in an oven?

Of young birds taken in their nests, a few species breed, when kept in eages; and they which do so, build their nests nearly in the same manner as in the wild state, and sit upon their eggs.. This is sufficient to prove an instinct, without having recourse to experiments upon birds hatched by artificial heat, and deprived, from their birth, of all communication with their species; for we can hardly bring ourselves to believe, that the parent bird informed her unfledged pupil of the history of her gestation, her timely preparation of a nest, her exclusion of the eggs, her long incubation, and of the joyful eruption at last of her expected offspring; all which the bird in the cage must have learnt in her infancy, if we resolve her conduct into institution.

Unless we will rather suppose, that she remembers her own escape from the egg; had attentively observed the conformation of the nest in which she was nurtured; and had treasured up her remarks for future imitation: which is not only extremely improbable, (for who, that sees a brood of callow birds in their nest, can believe that they are taking a plan of their habitation ?) but leaves unaccounted for, one principal part of the difficulty, "the preparation of the nest before the laying of the egg." This she could not gain from observation in her infancy.

It is remarkable also, that the hen sits upon eggs which she has laid without any communication with the male; and which are therefore necessarily unfruitful. That secret she is not let into. Yet if incubation had been a subject of instruction or of tradition, it should seem that this distinction would have formed

part of the lesson: whereas the instinct of nature is calculated for a state of nature: the exception here alluded to, taking place, chiefly, if not solely, amongst domesticated fowls, in which nature is forced out of her course.

There is another case of oviparous economy, which is still less likely to be the effect of education, than it is even in birds, namely, that of moths and butterflies, which deposit their eggs in the precise substance, that of a cabbage for example, from which, not the butterfly herself, but the caterpillar which is to issue from her egg, draws its appropriate food. The butterfly cannot taste the cabbage. Cabbage is no food for her: yet in the cabbage, not by chance, but studiously and electively, she lays her eggs. There are, amongst many other kinds, the willow-caterpillar and the cabbage-caterpillar: but we never find upon a willow, the caterpillar which eats the cabbage; nor the converse. This choice, as appears to me, cannot in the butterfly proced from instruction. She had no teacher in her caterpillar state. She never knew her parent. I do not see, therefore, how knowledge acquired by experience, if it ever were such, could be transmitted from one generation to another. There is no opportunity either for instruction or imitation. The parent race is gone, before the new brood is hatched. And if it be original reasoning in the butterfly, it is profound reasoning indeed. She must remember her caterpillar state, its tastes and habits of which memory she shows no signs whatever. She must conclude from analogy, (for here her recollection cannot serve her,) that the little round body which drops from her abdomen, will at a future period produce a living creature, not like herself, but like the caterpillar which she remembers herself once to have been. Under the influence of these reflections, she goes about to make provision for an order of things, which she concludes will, some time or other, take place. And it is to be observed, that not a few out of many, but that all butterflies argue thus; all draw this conclusion; all act upon it.

But suppose the address, and the selection, and the plan, which we perceive in the preparations which many irrational animals make for their young, to be traced to some probable origin; still there is left to be accounted for, that which is the source and foundation of these phænomena, that which sets the whole at work, the rogyn, the parental affection, which I contend to be inexplicable upon any other hypothesis than that of instinct.

For we shall hardly, I imagine, in brutes, refer their conduct towards their offspring, to a sense of duty, or of decency, a care of reputation, a compliance with public manners, with public laws, or with rules of life built upon a long experience of their utility. And all attempts to account for the parental affection from association, I think, fail. With what is it associated? Most immediately with the throes of parturition, that is, with pain and terror and disease. The more remote but not less strong association, that which depends upon analogy, is all against it. Every thing else, which proceeds from the body, is cast away, and rejected. In birds, is it the egg which the hen loves? or is it the expectation which she cherishes of a future progeny, that keeps her upon her nest? What cause has she to expect delight from her progeny? Can any rational answer be given to the question, why, prior to experience, the brooding hen should look for pleasure from her chickens? It does not, I think, appear, that the cuckoo ever knows her young; yet in her way, she is as careful in making provision for them, as any other bird. She does not leave her egg in every hole. The salmon suffers no surmountable progress up the stream of fresh rivers. there? She sheds a spawn, which she immediately quits, in order to return to the sea: and this issue of her body she never afterwards recognises in any shape whatever. Where shall we find a motive for her efforts and her perseverance? Shall we seek it in argumentation, or in instinct? The violet crab of Jamaica performs a fatiguing march of some months' continuance from the mountains to the sea-side. When she reaches the coast, she casts her spawn into the open sea; and sets out upon her return home.

obstacle to oppose her And what does she do

Moths and butterflies, as hath already been observed, seek out for their eggs those precise situations and substances in which the offspring caterpillar will find its appropriate food. That dear caterpillar, the parent butterfly must never see. There are no experiments to prove that she would retain any knowledge of it, if she did. How shall we account for her conduct? I do not mean for her art and judgement in selecting and securing a maintenance for her young, but for the impulse upon which she acts. What should induce her to exert any art, or judgement, or choice, about the matter? The undisclosed grub, the animal which she is destined not to know, can hardly be the object of a particular affection, if we deny the influence of

instinct. There is nothing, therefore, left to her, but that of which her nature seems incapable, an abstract anxiety for the general preservation of the species; a kind of patriotism; a solicitude lest the butterfly race should cease from the creation.

Lastly, the principle of association will not explain the discontinuance of the affection when the young animal is grown up. Association, operating in its usual way, would rather produce a contrary effect. The object would become more necessary, by habits of society; whereas birds and beasts, after a certain time, banish their offspring; disown their acquaintance; seem to have even no knowledge of the objects which so lately engrossed the attention of their minds, and occupied the industry and labour of their bodies. This change, in different animals, takes place at different distances of time from the birth; but the time always corresponds with the ability of the young animal to maintain itself; never anticipates it. In the sparrow tribe, when it is perceived that the young brood can fly, and shift for themselves, then the parents forsake them for ever; and, though they continue to live together, pay them no more attention than they do to other birds in the same flock. I believe the same thing is true of all gregarious quadrupeds.

In this part of the case, the variety of resources, expedients, and materials, which animals of the same species are said to have recourse to, under different circumstances, and when differently supplied, makes nothing against the doctrine of instincts. The thing which we want to account for, is the propensity. The propensity being there, it is probable enough that it may put the animal upon different actions, according to different exigencies. And this adaptation of resources may look like the effect of art and consideration, rather than of instinct : but still the propensity is instinctive. For instance, suppose what is related of the woodpecker to be true, that in Europe she deposits her eggs in cavities, which she scoops out in the trunks of soft or decayed trees, and in which cavities the eggs lie concealed from the eye, and in some sort safe from the hand of man : but that, in the forests of Guinea and the Brazils, which man seldom frequents, the same bird hangs her nest to the twigs of tall trees; thereby placing them out of the reach of monkeys and snakes; i. e. that in each situation she prepares against the danger which she has most occasion to apprehend; suppose, I say, this to be true, and to be alleged, on the part of the bird Goldsmith's Natural History, vol. iv p. 244.

a

that builds these nests, as evidence of a reasoning and distinguishing precaution: still the question returns, whence the propensity to build at all?

:

Nor does parental affection accompany generation by any universal law of animal organization, if such a thing were intelligible. Some animals cherish their progeny with the most ardent fondness, and the most assiduous attention; others entirely neglect them and this distinction always meets the constitution of the young animal with respect to its wants and capacities. In many, the parental care extends to the young animal; in others, as in all oviparous fish, it is confined to the egg, and, even as to that, to the disposal of it in its proper element. Also, as there is generation without parental affection, so is there parental instinct, or what exactly resembles it, without generation. In the bee tribe, the grub is nurtured neither by the father nor the mother, but by the neutral bee. Probably the case is the same with ants.

I am not ignorant of the theory which resolves instinct into sensation; which asserts, that what appears to have a view and relation to the future, is the result only of the present disposition of the animal's body, and of pleasure or pain experienced at the time. Thus the incubation of eggs is accounted for by the pleasure which the bird is supposed to receive from the pressure of the smooth convex surface of the shells against the abdomen, or by the relief which the mild temperature of the egg may afford to the heat of the lower part of the body, which is observed at this time to be increased beyond its usual state. This present gratification is the only motive with the hen for sitting upon her nest; the hatching of the chickens is with respect to her, an accidental consequence. The affection of viviparous animals for their young is, in like manner, solved by the relief, and perhaps the pleasure, which they perceive from giving suck. The young animal's seeking, in so many instances, the teat of its dam, is explained from its sense of smell, which is attracted by the odour of milk. The salmon's urging its way up the stream of fresh-water rivers, is attributed to some gratification or refreshment, which, in this particular state of the fish's body, she receives from the change of element. Now of this theory it may be said,

First, that of the cases which require solution, there are few to which it can be applied with tolerable probability; that there are none to which it can be applied without strong objections,