INSECT HEARING. 199 



various injuries, is supplied by an assemblage of hairs, with 

 which the cornea of Bees and many other Insects is overspread : 

 the hairs which spring from its reticulate divisions having been 

 likened, when viewed microscopically, to a forest of fir-trees. 



Linnseus and other naturalists have doubted whether Insects 

 hear, although from common observation, as well as from 

 general evidence, their hearing would seem as little a matter of 

 question as their sight. Their oral organs would appear less de- 

 cidedly ascertained. It is however usual to suppose that these 

 are none other than the antennae, those slender flexible 

 appendages, capable of being directed, like the long movable 

 ears of an ass or a hare, to all quarters, for the conveyance of 

 sound. Their projection and position in front of the head 

 favours, by analogy, the idea of their being adapted to the same 

 use as the ears of other animals ; and the infinite variety of form 

 by which those of the latter are distinguished, has been fairly 

 urged against objections on the score of their unusual shape. 



Observations, such as may be multiplied daily by ourselves, 

 have also tended to confirm the above inference founded on 

 analogy. Kirby adduces among other examples, the common 

 use made by those prying parasites, the Ichneumon Elies, of 

 their long, flexible, ever-moving antenna, which they are 

 accustomed to plunge into the deep nest-holes of the solitary 

 Bees, whose grubs are converted into living receptacles for 

 their eggs. Some indeed have conjectured that it may be 

 merely with intent to explore the nest, and feel for her infant 



