loc. cit. ante_, p. 413.

[126] Belt, _Naturalist in Nicaragua_, p. 119.

[127] Buechner, _Geistesleben der Thiere_, p. 318.

I could prolong this list to a much greater length, but think it hardly
necessary. I think that I have demonstrated that man is not the only
tool-user.

Even such dyed-in-the-wool creationists as Kirby and Spence are forced
to admit the presence of reason in insects.

"Such, then, are the exquisiteness, the number, and the extraordinary
development of the instincts of insects. But is instinct the sole guide
of their actions? Are they in every case the blind agent of irresistible
impulse? These queries, I have already hinted, cannot, in my opinion,
be replied to in the affirmative; and I now proceed to show that though
instinct is the chief guide to insects, they are endowed also with no
inconsiderable portion of _reason_."[128]

[128] Kirby and Spence, _Entomology_, p. 591.

Studied both objectively and subjectively, insects present indisputable
evidence of reason. Not the higher abstract reason of the human being,
however, but reason in its primal, fundamental state.

The difference between instinct and reason is not generally understood,
and, as I believe that most readers can comprehend an illustration much
quicker than an explanation, I will use the former in order to bring out
this difference.

The hen which sits three weeks on a china egg is influenced by blind
impulse--instinct; while the turkey which discovers the eggs of her
rival in her nest, and destroys them, is directed by something
infinitely higher--by reason. The using of a common nest never occurs
among these birds in a wild state, neither is it of so frequent
occurrence among domesticated turkeys as to have formed an instinctive
habit.

Again, the honey-making ants which left their patrol line in order to
slay the wounded centipede may have been, and probably were, influenced
by instinct; another and wholly different psychical trait, however,
impelled them to fill up the trench dug with my hunting knife. This
accident could not have occurred, perhaps, to them in a state of nature,
or if by any possibility it had ever occurred before, the chances are
that such occurrences were few in number, and that they happened at long
intervals of time, thus precluding the establishment of an instinctive
habit. Nor do I think it possible for this action to come under the head
of "specialized instinct," for the same reason. B