836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ground, and by its foot-organ knows all that is passing there. 

 This otolithic apparatus is admirably well adapted to give notice 

 to the mollusk or to the insensitive armor of the crustacean of the 

 least disturbances that pass through the mass into which it is 

 plunged. Every one is acquainted with the experiment of the 

 balls in contact series. A disturbance reaching the end of the 

 chain is betrayed only by the last ball, which is free, and expends 

 in oscillations the shock that is transmitted to it. Equally well 

 known is the process of placing in contact with the vibrating 

 body, plate, or membrane a light substance sand or cork the 

 oscillations of which reveal a vibration which our eyes can not 

 discover on the trembling body. In the same way every disturb- 

 ance traverses the indifferent mass of the animal, and the otolith 

 free in the otocyst, collects it, and announces the slightest shocks 

 to the nervous tissue on which it reposes. The preotolithic forma- 

 tions serve in a similar way. Animals furnished with otoliths 

 can thus analyze rhythms and disturbances which are synthetized 

 in our cochlea into sounds of different tones. The otolithic bell 

 can only reveal a trepidation, and continues unfit to provoke a 

 continuous sensation other than that which results from the per- 

 sistance of nervous, terminal, or central impressions, a limit be- 

 yond which it can not estimate the pitch without such an arrange- 

 ment as that of the cochlear formations. 



As does the spider in the center of its web, stretching with its 

 weight all the vibrating cords that converge toward its fore legs, 

 furnished with otoliths, so can any insect standing on slight legs, 

 stiff and flexible at once, which draw from the ground the slight- 

 est tremblings as its antennae do from the air, distinguish be- 

 tween a thousand significant disturbances, without, after all, per- 

 ceiving any sensation like what we call sound. 



There are, in fact, two fundamental senses which are two forms 

 of touch. The first is immediate touch, under the form of con- 

 tact when the surface of the object is accessible, or of smell or 

 taste when it is in a state of division, in which it is revealed by its 

 molecular atmosphere. The second touch, at a distance, which is 

 extremely varied, comes by means of the modification of an inter- 

 posed medium originating in the object that is perceived. Per- 

 ceptions of electricity and heat are common to both forms. 



We ought, a priori, to refuse to attribute to insects, whose sen- 

 sorial organs are so different from ours, senses like those of man. 

 Should not their psychology with more reason be referred to 

 them as a class than to ours ? And while it may be legitimate for 

 man to expect to find some of his feelings among the vertebrates 

 which have the most evident relationship with him, that inverse 

 anthropomorphism has a curious appearance which lends our 

 thoughts, wishes, needs, senses, and affections to beings so differ- 



