INSECT VARIETY. 37 



a cylinder that can be made to revolve, several tunes are noted ; 

 turn the cylinder, and the tune for Avhich it is set is played ; 

 draw it out a notch, and it gives a second ; and so you may g-o 

 on until the whole number of tunes noted on it have had their 

 turn. 



Lamarck, as is known, defined Insecta as sentient animals that 

 obtain from their sensations percej^tions only of objects — simple 

 ideas they are unable to combine to form complex ones, which 

 intelligent animals not only do, but retain notions thus formed. 

 Since the promulgation of this formula, fuller knowledge has 

 resulted fi"om the investigations of De Geer, John Hunter, Hubers, 

 Kirby, Rennie, Burmeister, Goureau, Miiller, Siebold, Westring, 

 Landois, and others, as may be seen in the masterly resumes of 

 Dr. Darwin and coadjutors. And consequent on completer recog- 

 nition and partial localisation of the sensorial organs of touch, 

 taste, smell, and sight, in caterpillars, and other larval forms of 

 insects, and of hearing in imagines, their action on the nervous 

 system has become patent, as determining emotions cognate with 

 the passions of fear, love, rivalry, and maternal cai'e, whose 

 biological operation on the organic being manifests itself in 

 reproduction and distribution, inducing variation and selection. 



We likewise discover the intensity of these stimuli com- 

 mensurate in their spontaneous indication as contractions, secre- 

 tions, battles, display, and dances ; vocal music, wing Ijcatings, 

 and instrumental music; or in migrations; characteristic of 

 the third or perfect state of insects — and despite of the dis- 

 proportionately larger posterior ganglions, we should be pre- 

 disposed still to infer them determined in the capital knot. 

 And this conjecture is strengthened by the impressions of sight, 

 taste, and odours dii'ectly conveyed here through the nerves, as 

 Ijy the bites and antennal caresses lavished on the part ; 

 although, on the other hand, strange to say, disseverment asserts 

 functional volition resident in those segmental ganglions imme- 

 diately connected with the other centres of nerve ramification, 

 which also receive afferents from organs of sense. For if the 

 tales of wasps who have continued to imbibe sugar-and-water 

 after decapitation be well authenticated, no less is it certain 

 that there resides in the other rings a power to perform 

 special actions. 1 remember observing the body of a yellow 



