270 The supposed Auditory Powers 



rably exhibited. The hare, the mouse, &c. instantly retreat 

 from the danger of which their acute hearing constantly 

 warns them ; but the tortoise cannot so retreat : acute hear- 

 ing, and acute sense of danger, were to him a perpetual pu- 

 nishment. I have thus, I think, established from a reference 

 to nature herself, that a hollow conch is the best external au- 

 ditory instrument, and that, as a general rule, probably liable 

 to many exceptions, the larger the conch the more acute is 

 the auditory power. I now turn to insects. 



The antenna of insects are of infinitely varied form, so 

 much so indeed, that the conclusions we draw from them can 

 only be of a very limited and general kind. The following 

 characters however appear constant : antenna are perfectly 

 solid, and without any tube or cavity in the interior ; and 

 they possess no external orifice by which sound could enter 

 them, nor any internal orifice by which they could transmit 

 sound to the seat of the auditory faculty. These characters, 

 as I said, admit but of a general conclusion ; but, though ge- 

 neral, the conclusion is obvious, that if the antenna are real- 

 ly auditory instruments, their employment as such implies the 

 existence of principles in acoustics with which philosophers 

 are hitherto entirely unacquainted. 



Taking the vast insect kingdom as a mass, we find it next 

 to an impossibility to prove that they possess the faculty of 

 hearing ; but it is not at all inconsistent with reason and ana- 

 logy to suppose such to be the case. We have many insects 

 musical ; and we infer, with every apparently reasonable 

 ground, that there is a correspondent auditory faculty posses- 

 sed by the individuals for whom this music is intended. — 

 This conclusion is not visionary, but is rational, and almost 

 self-demonstrative. Of musical insects, the great tribes of ci- 

 cadas and crickets stand far before all others ; and if we care- 

 fully examine the remarkably minute antenna of the Cicada > 

 or the remarkably slender hair-like antenna of the crickets, 

 we must conclude, not only that these instruments are ill- 

 adapted to collect and transmit sound, but further still, that 

 were the task imposed on us of framing an instrument ex- 

 pressly to avoid arresting the progress of sound, we should 

 fashion it precisely after the similitude of these antenna. 



Pursuing analogical reasoning one step farther, we should 

 say that the luminous property of the female glow-worm im- 

 plies the existence of the faculty of sight in the male ; and 

 we think it reasonable that the male should possess a more 

 perfect and extended vision than the female, which requires 

 not the same guide. The suggestion is a just one : nature 

 has given to the male glow-worm, eyes six times as large as 



