26 ELEMENTS OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



From Mr. IVIarsham's account it appears that these insects do not 

 adopt any hole indiscriminately as a situation for their eggs; for in 

 many instances he saw them thrust their antennEe into holes and cre- 

 vices from which they almost immediately withdrew them, and pro- 

 ceeded in search of others. As the whole of the ichneumons deposit 

 tlieir eggs in the body of some other creature as a nidus, it appears 

 probable that in these instances they found the holes empty, and that 

 they went on in search of tliosc in which the young of the Jpis majcil- 

 losa were deposited. 



From these remarks may we not infer that the antenncC may be the 

 organs of smelling? for the antennae of the Ichneumon Manlfestator 

 (PL 8. Jig. 4.) are not so long as the tube from which the eggs are ex- 

 cluded, and consequently could not have touched the animal in which 

 it afterwards deposited its eggs. In many species of Lcpidoptera the 

 females arc destitute of wings : the males in general have pectinated 

 antenna, and are so extremely eager after the female, that they have 

 been known to enter the pocket of an entomologist who had one se- 

 cured in a box. 



These experiments are in some measure corroborated by the ob- 

 ser\'ations of Latreille, who supposes the antennae to be the olfactory 

 organs. In the twelfth number of the Edinburgh Review is a critique 

 (on the Nouveau Bictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, 24 tom. 8vo. Paris, 

 1803-4.) : the following extract I here insert, hoping it will produce a 

 further inquiry. 



" That insects possess the faculty of smelhng is clearly demonstrated. 

 It is the most perfect of all their senses. Beetles, of various sorts, M- 

 tidulie, the different species of Dermestes, Si/lpha, Flies, &,-€., perceive, at a 

 very considerable distance, the smell of ordure and dead bodies, and 

 resort in swarms to the situations in which they occur, cither for the 

 purpose of procuring food or depositing their eggs. The blue flesh- 

 fly, deceived by the cadaverous odour of a species of ArH7n, alights on 

 its flower. But though we can thus easily prove the presence of the 

 sense of smell among insects, it is much more difficult to discover the 

 seat of that particular sense. Several naUiralists have supposed that 

 it resides in the antennae. Dvuneril, in a dissertation published in 

 1799, attempts to prove that it must be siUiated about the entrance of 

 the stigmata or respiratory organs, as Baster had previously supposed. 

 His arguments, however, did not induce Latreille to relinquish the for- 

 » mer opinion, which places it in the antenus. The following are the 

 reasons which he assigns for his belief 



*' 1. The exercise of smell consists only in the action of air, impreg- 

 nated with odoriferous particles, on the nervous or olfactory mem- 

 brane, which transmits the sensation. 



" If insects be endowed with an organ furnished with similar nerves, 

 and with which air, charged witli odoriierous particles; comes in con- 



