One writer, and that a very ingenious one, has endeavoured to resolve _all_ instincts into reason, and has boldly hazarded the following conjecture. "If we were better acquainted with the histories of those insects that are formed into societies,--as the bees, wasps and ants,--we should find that their arts and improvements are not so similar and uniform as they now appear to us, but that they arose in the same manner (from experience and tradition) as the arts of our own species; though their reasoning is from few ideas, is busied about fewer objects, and is exerted with less energy[W]." [Footnote W: Darwin.] Since the Doctor wrote this passage, much light has been thrown upon those very subjects on which he laments our defective knowledge: but whilst it strengthens what I have said as to the possession of reason by insects, it confirms my observations respecting their instinctive powers. There are facts recorded, in +Huber's+ _researches respecting ants_, which exhibit in some at least of those insects, (_the Amazons_,) a power of acquiring habits and characters which cannot well be regarded as merely instinctive. The Amazons take advantage of an improvement in their condition, and avail themselves of that strength, which sometimes accrues to them, in consequence of a large accession to their numbers. To relieve themselves from labour, they enslave, by a _coup de main_, a feeble colony of ants of another species, and transporting it to their own domicile, impose upon the captives the task of collecting provision, rearing the young, repairing the formicary, &c. &c. The Amazons become a complete aristocracy, and like ladies and gentlemen, have servants to wait upon them.