ORGAN OF SMELL, 61 



are their org;ans of smell ; and the opinion has been 

 adopted by Cuvier, Dumeril, and Lehmann, chiefly 

 for the reason already mentioned, that the inspira- 

 tion of air seems to be an indispensable condition ot 

 smelling-. If it should be objected, that it is no less re- 

 quisite for this organ to be near the mouth to serve for 

 a guide as to the quality of food, Lehmann answers, 

 that this is not so requisite in insects, because they 

 are usually so much smaller than their food, and 

 frequently even reside in what they eat, and may 

 therefore smell as advantageously with the tail as 

 the head *. To us, this appears quite as vague and 

 conjectural as the argument of Cuvier f, who thinks, 

 from the wind-pipes {trachece) being lined with a 

 soft and moist membrane, that organ calculated, like 

 the Schneiderian membraneof our nostrils, to perceive 

 odours ; but though this was really soft and moist, 

 as it is not |, it would no more prove this point, 

 than would the soft, moist surface of our inner eye- 

 lids, or of our tongue and palate, prove them to be 

 organs of smell. 



M. De Blainville decides more positively than the 

 facts seem to authorize that the antennae are the organs 

 of smell. The modification, he remarks, of the skin 

 which invests them, is in general olfactory only in a 

 small degree, this power appearing to be more vivid 

 in the thickest portion of the organ, where it is more 

 soft and tender, as in the carrion beetles {Necr'ophaga)^ 

 which possess so delicate a sense of smelling. From 

 spiders being destitute of antennae, he thinks it very 

 difficult to conceive where the seat of their organ of 

 smell is placed, if indeed they possess one, which he 

 is disposed to doubt. Crabs and lobsters on the 



* De Usu Antennarum, p. 31. 

 f Anatomie Comparat. ii. 675. 



X Sprengel, Comraentar, 14 j and Lyonnet, TraU6 Anato« 

 mique, 103. 



a 



