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]." [Footnote 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.