260 SENSES OF INSECTS. 
which they receive the impressions from external objects, 
that analogy would lead us to expect a difference of this 
kind also in the sense of smell. Besides, smell does not 
invariably accompany respiratory organs even in the 
higher animals, — for we breathe with our mouths, but do 
not smell with them. Cuvier says that the internal mem- 
brane of the tracheae being soft and moist, appears cal- 
culated to receive scents \ But here his memory failed 
him ; for it is the external membrane alone that answers 
this description; the internal consisting of a spiral elastic 
thread, and seeming not at all fitted to receive impressions, 
but merely to convey the air b . That nerves penetrate 
to the bronchiae, does not necessarily imply that they are 
connected with the sense in question, since this may be 
to act upon the muscles which are every where distri- 
buted. 
I shall now state some facts that seem to prove that 
scents are received by some organ in the vicinity of the 
mouth, and probably connected with the nose. M. P. Hu- 
ber, desirous of ascertaining the seat of smell in bees, 
tried the following experiments with that view. These 
animals, of all ill scents, abominate most that of the oil 
of turpentine. He presented successively to all the 
points of a bee's body, a hair-pencil saturated with it: but 
whether he presented it to the abdomen, the trunk, or 
the head, the animal equally disregarded it. Next, 
using a very fine hair-pencil, while the bee had extended 
its proboscis, he presented the pencil to it, to the eyes 
and antennae, without producing any effect; but when he 
pointed it near the cavity of the mouth, above the insertion 
* Ubisupr. h See above, p. 63. Sprengel Commentar. 14 — . 
