ZOOGENESIS 



the bats with awe because they are primarily con- 

 trolled by senses which with us play a more or less 

 secondary part, and are most active at a time when our 

 chief controlling sense is least reliable. But the great 

 fruit-bats with their more or less dog-like heads and 

 large and perfect eyes we can understand, so they 

 appear to us simply as flying mammals. 



Because of their large eyes both of which are di- 

 rected forward as is the case with us, wisdom is com- 

 monly attributed to owls. Yet they are almost uni- 

 versally regarded with superstitious dread. This fear 

 or dread is based not on their structure or incompre- 

 hensible bodily control as in the case of bats, but 

 arises from their unusual and often shrieking cries and 

 their mostly nocturnal habits. 



"Just as the vertebrates are so frequently creatures 

 of the visual and auditory senses" writes Professor 

 Dwight E. Minnich, "so the insects are largely crea- 

 tures of the chemical senses. For it is chiefly by 

 means of these senses that most insects find their food, 

 their mates, and the food of their offspring, and that 

 the social insects are able to make the manifold dis- 

 criminations necessitated by their highly complex 

 social organization." 



Professor Minnich says that a comparison between 

 the chemical senses of insects and the corresponding 

 senses of the vertebrates, including man, shows many 

 rather fundamental similarities. But between the 

 chemical senses of man and of the insects there appears 

 to be one outstanding difference, and that is the 

 greater acuteness of these senses in many insects. 



