led on, till they reached the more
fertile spots, and so acquired, like the sheep of Spain, their migratory
powers.

{288} The distinction between _faculty_ and _instinct_ corresponds
in some degree to that between perception of a stimulus and a
specific reaction. I imagine that the author would have said that
the sensitiveness to light possessed by a plant is _faculty_, while
_instinct_ decides whether the plant curves to or from the source
of illumination.

{289} <Note in the original in an unknown handwriting.> At the time
when corn was pitched in the market instead of sold by sample, the
geese in the town fields of Newcastle <Staffordshire?> used to
know market day and come in to pick up the corn spilt.

{290} <Note in original.> Macculloch and others.

{291} I can find no reference to the _transandantes_ sheep in
Darwin's published work. He was possibly led to doubt the accuracy
of the statement on which he relied. For the case of the sheep
returning to their birth-place see p. 17, note 4.{Note 91}

Fourthly, with respect to the combs of the hive-bee{292}; here again we
must look to some faculty or means by which they make their hexagonal
cells, without indeed we view these instincts as mere machines. At
present such a faculty is quite unknown: Mr Waterhouse supposes that
several bees are led by their instinct to excavate a mass of wax to a
certain thinness, and that the result of this is that hexagons
necessarily remain. Whether this or some other theory be true, some such
means they must possess. They abound, however, with true instincts,
which are the most wonderful that are known. If we examine the little
that is known concerning the habits of other species of bees, we find
much simpler instincts: the humble bee merely fills rude balls of wax
with honey and aggregates them together with little order in a rough
nest of grass. If we knew the instinct of all the bees, which ever had
existed, it is not improbable that we should have instincts of every
degree of complexity, from actions as simple as a bird making a nest,
and rearing her young, to the wonderful architecture and government of
the hive-bee; at least such is _possible_, which is all that I am here
considering.

{292} _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 224, vi. p. 342.

Finally, I will briefly consider under the same point of view one other
class of instincts, which have often been