ANOTHER WORLD DOWN HERE. 47 



organs, and wonderfully developed in some, as may be seen by exam- 

 ining the plumes of the crested gnat. Everybody who has carefully 

 watched the doings of insects must have observed the curiously investi- 

 gative movements of the antennae, which are ever on the alert peering 

 and prying to right and left and upward and downward. Huber, who 

 devoted his life to the study of bees and ants, concluded that these 

 insects converse with each other by movements of the antenna?, and 

 he has given to the signs thus produced the name of " antennal lan- 

 guage." They certainly do communicate information or give orders 

 by some means ; and, when they stop for that purpose, they face each 

 other and execute peculiar wavings of these organs that are highly 

 sugestive of the movements of the old semaphore-telegraph arms. 



The most generally received opinion is, that these antennae are very 

 delicate organs of touch, but some recent experiments made by Gustav 

 Hansen indicate that they are organs of smelling or of some similar 

 power of distinguishing objects at a distance. Flies de^^rived of their 

 antennae ceased to display any interest in tainted meat that had pre- 

 viously proved very attractive. Other insects similarly treated appear 

 to become indifferent to odors generally. He shows that the develop- 

 ment of the antennae in different species corresponds to the power of 

 smelling which they seem to possess. 



I am sorely tempted to add another argument to those brought 

 forward by Hansen, viz., that our own olfactory nerves, and those of 

 all our near mammalian relations, are curiously like a pair of antennae. 



There are two elements in a nervous structure the gray and the 

 white ; the gray or ganglionic portion is supposed to be the center or 

 seat of nervous power, and the white medullary or fibrous portion 

 merely the conductor of nervous energy. 



The nerves of the other senses have their ganglia seated internally, 

 and the bundles of tubular white threads spread outward therefrom, 

 but not so with the olfactory nervous apparatus. There are two horn- 

 like projections thrust forward from the base of the brain, with white 

 or medullary stems that terminate outwardly or anteriorly in gan- 

 glionic bulbs resting upon what I may call the roof of the nose, and 

 throwing out fibers that are composed, rather paradoxically, of more 

 gray matter than white. In some quadrupeds with great power of 

 smell, these two nerves extend so far forward as to protrude beyond 

 the front of the hemispheres of the brain, with bulbous terminations 

 relatively very much larger than those of man. 



They thus appear like veritable antennae. In some of our best 

 works on anatomy of the brain (Solly, for example) a series of com- 

 parative pictures of the brains of different animals is shown, extend- 

 ing from man to the codfish. As we proceed downward, the horn- 

 like projection of the olfactory nerves beyond the central hemispheres 

 goes on extending more and more, and the relative magnitude of the 

 terminal ganglia or olfactory lobes increases in similar order. 



