40 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOL'S COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



ning all the way to the umbel and apparently has not seen the way 

 in which the nerves actually end in the umljels. 



Janet (1907) describes and gives a drawing of one of these same 

 organs that he found near the articulation of the wing of a queen 

 ant. Its morphology is the same as described above. Thus in ants, 

 according to Janet, we see that Hicks' vesicles are not only found on 

 the legs, but also near the wing articulations and probably also on the 

 mouth parts. According to their anatomy, as Janet describes it, 

 these organs function as some kind of a chemical sense and in fact are 

 as suitable to perceive olfactory stimuli as are the antennal organs, 

 if not more suitable. 



Wesche (1904) remarks that a certain bot-fly has a highly 

 developed sense of smell, equal to that of many mammals. This fly 

 has large antennae containing sense organs that are larger than 

 those in some other flies ; some of these organs are known to function 

 as a keen olfactory sense. 



I think that where the antennte are not particularly sensitive, the palpi have 

 this structure to compensate. We thus see that the palpi, like the antennas, 

 can bear organs of three senses — touch, taste, and smell ; but I do not think 

 that any one palpus has more than two of these senses developed at the same 

 time. 



Besides making such broad statements concerning the senses of 

 insects, the same writer describes and gives drawings of some sense 

 organs that he thinks entirely new. Some of these he found on the 

 legs, which are without doubt Hicks' vesicles. He observed these 

 organs in f'cspa and in many Diptera and his description of their 

 superficial appearance fits what has been seen by the author. Wesche 

 remarks that these organs are possibly auditory or for some unknown 

 sense ; however, he says nothing about their internal anatomy or any 

 literature relating to them. 



Freiling (1909) spent a short time studying the anatomy of Hicks' 

 vesicles as found in the wings of butterflies. While Guenther found 

 these sense domes (Sinneskuppeln) in great numbers, irregularly 

 scattered on the veins near the base of butterfly wings, Freiling re- 

 gards them as regularly distributed in the same location. The super- 

 ficial appearance, as he has drawn it, is similar to that of the bee. 

 He shows a large bipolar sense cell with its sense fiber ruiming to the 

 apparent opening in these organs but he thinks that the sense fiber 

 ends [clublike] just beneath the apparent aperture. He worked three 

 weeks trying to get good sections of these organs and succeeded in 

 getting only one specimen from which he obtained fairly good sec- 

 tions. Freiling gives only one drawing each of the external and the 



