PARTS OF INSECTS. 23 



^pursuit. The same author deprived crickets, which are animals noted 

 for acuteness of hearing, of the antennae; yet they were equally sen- 

 sible of sound as before. Lelunann concludes on the whole, that as 

 the antenna' are not the organs of either smell or liearing, their prin- 

 cipal though not sole office is feeling. But they are also endowed 

 with an unknown sense, which he denominates acroscepsin, and con- 

 jectures that in certain species they may contribute to the defence of 

 the head. 



Ruber, well known for his ingenious and acute observations on 

 hees, has made several most interesting experiments on the sub- 

 ject. Amputating one of the antenna; of a queen he found was 

 not attended with any perceptible effect. Privation of both anten- 

 na?, however, produced very singular consequences. M. Iluber cut 

 them from a queen whose fecundation had been retarded, so that 

 she laid none but the eo;o;s of males. From that moment a marked 

 alteration in her conduct was seen; she tiaversed the combs with 

 extraordinary rapidity, scarcely had the workers time to recede be^ 

 fore her; and, instead of the care which a perfect queen displays in 

 depositing her eggs in those places alone suitable for their exclu- 

 sion, she dropped them at random without selecting proper cells: she 

 retired to the most solitary parts of the hive, seeming to avoid the 

 hees, and long remained motionless. Several workers, however, fol- 

 lowed her there, and treated her with the most evident respect. She 

 seldom required honey from them ; but when that was the case, she 

 directed her trunk with a kind of imcertain feeling, sometimes on tha 

 head and sometimes on the limbs of the workers; and if she did reach 

 their mouths it was by chance. Queens leave their hive but once m 

 their whole lives, which is for the purpose of obtaining impregnation; 

 they remain voluntary prisoners ever afterwards, unless in leading out 

 a swarm. This queen, however, seemed eager to escape; she rushed 

 towards the opening of the hive, but finding it too small for her exit she 

 returned after fruitless exertion. Notwithstanding the symptoms of 

 delirium by which she was agitated, the workers never ceased to pay 

 her the same attention as they invariably do their queens, though she 

 received it with indifference. 



Apprehensive that the queen's instinct might be impaired, from her 

 organization suffering by retarded fecundation, M. Huber deprived 

 another female of the antennae, and introduced her into the hive. She 

 was quite in the nalTiral state, and had already proved of great fertility : 

 but now she exhibited exactly the same symptoms of agitation and de- 

 lirium that the other had done. Perfect queens, possessing all their 

 organs, testify the most violent animosity against each other ; they 

 fight repeatedly ; the workers seem to incite them to combat, until 

 one at length falls, wliile the other svnvives to preserve and perpetuate 

 the colony. Mutilated of the autennte, however, they testify no recib 



