ORGAN OF HEARING. 113 



<j[elicacy and rapidity of their movement, yield in no 

 respect to the antennss.'* 



To us there does not, however, seem to be any- 

 thing in this which shows the antennae to have any 

 pecuhar functions, any more than we should think it 

 correct to theorize in the same way upon the bills of 

 nestling birds, which are opened to receive food, or 

 their wings, which are opened and vibrated rapidly 

 while they receive it. The quick movements of the 

 antennse, indeed, which have in many insects been 

 remarked as indicating eagerness to explore by touch, 

 appear to us precisely like the similar motions re- 

 markable in the ears of horses, and even of the 

 dullest ass, when excited by any thing that pleases 

 them. Ants, bees, and other insects, perhaps employ 

 sounds for communicating with one another inaudible 

 to our ears. That bees, at least, are affected by 

 noises which we can hear is proved from the singular 

 effect produced upon them by sounds occasionally 

 emitted by the queen, as well as by the death's-head 

 moth {Aclierontia Jltropos). 



The younger Huber also fancies that the aphides 

 and gall insects, upon which the ants depend for a 

 considerable portion of their food, understand the an- 

 tennal language as well as the ants themselves. ^ By 

 watching a single brown ant ' {Formica brunnea), he 

 says, ' on a branch of a thistle, I saw it at first pass, 

 without stopping, some aphides, which it did not dis- 

 turb, but shortly after stationed itself near one of the 

 smallest, and appeared to caress it by touching its tail 

 alternately with its antennae, with an extremely rapid 

 movement, like the play of the fingers in a shake 

 upon the piano-forte. I saw with much surprise the 

 fluid (honey-dew) escape from the body of the aphis, 

 and the ant take it into its mouth. Its antennae were 

 directed to a much larger aphis than the first, which, 

 on being caressed after the same manner, discharged 



^ Huber on Ants, page 208. 

 VOL. xir. 10* 



