Audubon
has given several remarkable cases of differences in the nests of the same
species in the northern and southern United States. Why, it has been
asked, if instinct be variable, has it not granted to the bee "the ability
to use some other material when wax was deficient?" But what other natural
material could bees use? They will work, as I have seen, with wax hardened
with vermilion or softened with lard. Andrew Knight observed that his
bees, instead of laboriously collecting propolis, used a cement of wax and
turpentine, with which he had covered decorticated trees. It has lately
been shown that bees, instead of searching for pollen, will gladly use a
very different substance, namely, oatmeal. Fear of any particular enemy is
certainly an instinctive quality, as may be seen in nestling birds, though
it is strengthened by experience, and by the sight of fear of the same
enemy in other animals. The fear of man is slowly acquired, as I have
elsewhere shown, by the various animals which inhabit desert islands; and
we see an instance of this, even in England, in the greater wildness of all
our large birds in comparison with our small birds; for the large birds
have been most persecuted by man. We may safely attribute the greater
wildness of our large birds to this cause; for in uninhabited islands large
birds are not more fearful than small; and the magpie, so wary in England,
is tame in Norway, as is the hooded crow in Egypt.
Pages:
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402