464 Miscellaneous, 



DISCOVERY OF MUMMIES AT DURANGO, MEXICO. 



A million of mummies have lately been discovered near Durango, 

 in Mexico. They are in a sitting posture, but have the same wrappings, 

 bands, and ornaments as the Egyptians ; among them was found a 

 poignard of flint, with a sculptured handle, chaplets, necklaces, &c., 

 of alternately coloured beads, fragments of bones polished like ivory, 

 fine worked elastic tissues, moccasins worked like those of our Indians, 

 bones of vipers, &c. A fact of importance is stated ; that the neck- 

 laces are of a marine shell found at Zacatecas, on the Pacific, where 

 the Columbus of their forefathers probably therefore landed from 

 Hindostan or from the Malay, or Chinese coast, or from their islands 

 in the Indian ocean. — Silliman's American Journal, April, 1839. 



EXPERIMENTS ON THE OLFACTORY SENSE OF THE ANTENNA. BY 

 M. A. LEFEBVRE. 



The observations of the author were first made upon a bee which 

 was feeding upon a piece of sugar. Having moistened a long needle 

 with aether, he approached it gently to the sugar ; but the extremity 

 of the instrument had hardly come within a few lines of the insect 

 when it showed great uneasiness, and did not cease agitating its an- 

 tennae whilst directing them towards the odorous body. The bee, 

 on the contrary, was not at all affected when M. Lefebvre touched 

 the piece of sugar with a needle which had not been dipped in aether, 

 or with a match, &c. " After having given the insect some moments 

 of rest," says the author, " I again plunged my needle into the aether, 

 and, hoping to accustom it to this penetrating smell, I approached 

 the needle softly to its anal extremity. The bee did not move, but 

 continued eating. Encouraged by this success, I slid the point of 

 my needle along the body against the feet, but without touching the 

 stigmata ; I even deposited a little drop of the liquid there, and I did 

 all this without the bee's appearing in the least uneasy. My sur- 

 prise was very great to see that the insect suffered nothing in the 

 neighbourhood of the stigmata, but as soon as I sought to pass the 

 fore feet, the antennae, by being lowered, obstructed my progress. 



" I began again, and in advancing along the back from the hinder 

 to the fore part, there was the same immoveable ness as long as I went 

 no further than the abdomen ; but as soon as I arrived above the 

 thorax the antennae were suddenly thrown over, agitated and trem- 

 bling with anger." M. Lefebvre subsequently made some experi- 

 ments on wasps ; he cut off the antennae of these insects at differ- 

 ent lengths, and made himself sure by means of aether, that a slight 

 section at the extremity of these organs is sufficient to produce 



