282 CLASS VIII. 
they taste. An observation of HuBER respecting bees pleads for 
this opinion. Bees are very averse to oil of turpentine; these insects 
were not, however, repelled when Huser brought a pencil dipped 
in it to the air-slits and other parts of the body, but flew away as 
soon as he approached it to the mouth. Lesser had already 
noticed that flesh-flies, whose eyes had been smeared with oil of 
turpentine, still flew to tainted meat, but not so when their snout 
had been smeared with it!. In Insects that do not suck the seat 
of smell is probably at the beginning of the cesophagus also”. 
Just as uncertain are we respecting the auditory organ of 
Insects, although it was known to the ancients that they have 
hearing®. Of this sense also several writers, and lately Newporr?, 
have sought the seat in the antenne. Yet the experiment that 
grasshoppers, when their antenne have been cut off, continue to 
hear, is even less favourable to this opinion, than is the presence of 
hearing in spiders that have, as is known, no antennee®>, RAMDOHR 
thinks that bees hear by means of their mandibles; TREVIRANUS 
thinks that he has discovered in Blatta orientalis®, in Libellula and 
in bees, and BLAINVILLE in Otcade, a special auditory organ’. 
When we remember that for an auditory organ in its simplest 
form nothing more is required than a nerve specifically receptive of 
undulations of sound and so expanded that such undulations may 
be conducted to it by means of the hard covering of the body, it is 
1 The secretion of Stapeliw, which resembles putrid flesh in smell, deceives flesh-flies 
into laying their eggs on the flowers (see RoxrsEL, Ins. 1. Muscar, & Culic. Tab. 1x.) ; 
a clear proof that the instinct of these animals is influenced more by smell than sight. 
2 G. R.TrReviIRANUS, Verm. Schr.tt. s. 146—155, Biologie, V1. s. 307-—318, Erschein- 
ungen u. Gesetze d. organ. Leb, Il. 8. 141. 
3 See for instance, on bees, AULIANI de Animalium nat., L.v. c. 13. Of the 
moderns BRUNELLI amongst others has proved hearing in Crickets by interesting 
experiments ; Comm. Acad, Bononiens. VI. 1791, pp. 199, 200. 
4 Topp’s Cycloped. 11. pp. 892, 96r. 
5 M.G. C. Lenmann, De Antennis Insectorum Dissertatio posterior, Londini et 
Hamburgi, 1800, 8vo. pp. 45—47. 
6 In Blatta orientalis there is on each side of the head, behind the base of the 
antenne, a white spot, formed by a round membrane, under which portions of the 
first nervous ganglion are immediately situated, TREVIRANUS, Annel. der Wetterauischen 
Gesellschaft, 1. s. 169—171, Taf. v. figs. 1—3. BuRMeristEr thinks these white spots 
are rudiments of simple eyes. 
7 Comp. TREVIRANUS, Biolog. VI. 8. 358—360; BuAINVILLE, De Vorganisation des 
Anim, 1822, I. p. 565, &e. 
