60 



INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



M. Bomare relates an experiment to prove that 

 the bed-bug (Cimex /ec^w/ctriMs) is not attracted, as 

 is popularly supposed, by heat, but by smell. He put 

 a bug into an empty bed-chamber, and throwing him- 

 self upon the bed, perceived that the insect did not 

 at first know whither to turn ; but it was not long in 

 smelling him out, and ran right towards his face ; * 

 but we can infer nothing certain from so clumsy an 

 experiment, and only mention it because it is quoted 

 as an authority by Lehmann | and others. We know 

 not whether the proposition of Goze to expel bugs 

 by the odour of horses [sudore equhio), is any 

 better founded,J though they certainly dislike the 

 smell of coal-gas, coal-tar, turpentine, rosin, and 

 camphor, as most insects do. 



ORGAN OF SMELL. 



As insects breathe in a very different manner from 

 the larger animals, namely, by a number of spiracles 

 along each side of the body, it becomes a question of 

 some difficulty, where their organs of smell are 

 situated. We cannot, indeed, easily conceive of smell 

 being produced except by a current of air, in which 

 odoriferous particles are diffused, passing through a 

 moistened channel, as was first so admirably de- 

 scribed two hundred years ago by Schneider ; § but 

 though it would be bad reasoning to infer that this 

 must be the case in insects, because we cannot conceive 

 any other, yet, as the analogy is strong, we ought at 

 least to investigate the point. 



Baster || seems to have been the first who con- 

 ceived that the spiracles, or breathing-holes of insects 



* Diet, Raisonne d'Hist. Nat. , Art. Punaise. 



t De Sensibus Extern. 29. 

 \- Natur. Menschenleben und Vors, ii, 213. 

 De Sensu ac Organo Odoratus, 12ino. Witteb. 1655. 

 II Opusc. subs. 



