244 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



" probably " and " may." But let us accept the organ, for 

 the moment, as thoroughly understood, — as the seat of a sense 

 or function now lost, — and contemplate the survey of vertebrate 

 atrophy. The internal and external ear form one of the most 

 popular studies in animal physiology. This is not the place to 

 attempt anything like a description, so I will refer the reader, if 

 necessary, to such text-books as 'Elementary Lessons in Animal 

 Physiology,' by the late Professor Huxley. And I feel sure that 

 a digest of the subject will secure my pardon for refusing to 

 believe there can be any analogy between our auditory mechanism 

 and the gill-cleft of a fish. The tympanum alone shows fixed 

 design — and by a Master Hand who knew his mind. 



Dictionaries may tell us atrophy means a wasting away, 

 but, amidst the hypothetical structures supporting an additional 

 sense, it is pleasant to find that the human vertebrate, if any- 

 thing has been lost, has nevertheless been a gainer on the whole. 

 Our progenitors may have had antennae, or revelled with the 

 fishes in the vasty deep ; but we are more comfortably off in the 

 mechanism of hearing, and live in drier conditions. We live 

 longer, and our dimensions have so enlarged that we cannot get 

 inside the armour of our forefathers. 



Coming back to Entomology, what is this supposed sense? 

 Obviously it is a sense of direction, whatever other adjunct it may 

 possess. But Sir John Lubbock, supported by Mr. Eomanes, 

 shows, in his ' Senses of Animals,' " that there is no sufficient 

 evidence among insects of anything which can justly be called a 

 sense of direction." 



Let us now consider what is meant, entomologically, by 

 " assembling." It is a gathering of the male sex to the female, 

 and from distances clearly beyond the reach of sight or sound. 

 It cannot be confounded with such phenomena as the stridulation 

 of beetles. It has been abundantly proved (Entom. xxvii. 337) 

 to be the result of extraordinary powers of smell. But Mr. 

 Watson concludes, from a note by the Eev. G. H. Eaynor 

 (Entom. XXV. 121), that some other influence is at work in 

 addition to that of scent. What are Mr. Eaynor' s words? 

 They are these: — "Even during a stiff breeze I have seen 

 males come up from all quarters of the compass" — the italics 

 are mine. Unless Mr. Eaynor corrects me, I regard the last 

 phrase as a figurative expression, or why use the words " come 

 Mjj " ? If the quotation is to be taken literally, then I venture to 

 say Mr. Eaynor's experience stands alone, and is even unsup- 

 ported by Mr. Watson, who quotes it. For what does Mr. 

 Watson say? He says: — "Scent cannot travel against the 

 wind, and in all the assembling expeditions I have been on, the 

 males always came against the wind ; and when, in their eager- 

 ness, the males overshot their mark and went past the female, 

 they lost the scent and flew up, soared away on the wind, dropped 



