104 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



ingly found that one of his friends was quite inseU'^ 

 sible to the sound of a small organ-pipe, which was 

 far within the limits of his own hearing. He also 

 remembers a female relation to have said that she 

 never could hear the crink of the hedge-cricket. 

 Two ladies of his acquaintance told him that their 

 father could never hear the chirping of the house- 

 sparrow, and this is the lowest limit to acute hearing 

 which he met with, and he supposes it to be very 

 uncommon ; deafness, even to the sound of the 

 house-cricket, is not usual, while it is by no means 

 rare to find people who are insensible to the shrill 

 squeak of the bat. 



The range of human hearing comprised between 



the lowest notes of the orajan, and the highest known 



Bound of insects, includes more than nine octaves, 



the whole of which are distinctly perceptible by most 



ears. But ' since there is nothing,' Dr Wollaston 



concludes, Mn the constitution of the atmosphere to 



prevent vibrations much more frequent than any of 



which we are conscious, we may imagine that animals 



like the crickets (GrT/Z/t), %vhose powers appear to 



commence nearly where ours terminate, may have 



the faculty of hearing still sharper sounds, which at 



present we do not know to exist ; and that there may 



be other insects, hearing nothing in common with us, 



but etidowed with a power of exciting, and a sense 



that perceives, vibrations indeed of the same nature 



as those which constitute our ordinary sounds, but 



so remote, that tVie animals who perceive them may 



be said to possess another sense, agreeing with our 



own solely in the medium by which it is excited, and 



possibly wholly unaffected by the slower vibrations of 



which we are sensible.'* 



* Dr Wollaston in Phil. Trans, for 1820, p. 314. 



