18 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
its usual place of abode you let it fly. It ascends to a lofty height as if to 
make obseryations. It sweeps round with one grand and graceful curve, 
and then like an arrew ejected from some mighty bow, sails swiftly straight 
to its wished-for locality. What is the impelling and guiding power in 
connexion with these remarkable movements? Is it instinct? Is it that 
they possess in active exercise another and to us an unknown sense, 
operating through organisations which we have not yet discovered, which 
may be in ourselves, but not at present developed. Few that have 
thought upon the subject can doubt but that there are properties in matter 
of which we know nothing, simply because we have not in active exercise 
physical organisation by which the mind can come in contact with those 
unperceived properties of the material universe. May not the lower order 
of creatures have organs of sense which to them are inlets of knowledge, 
but of which we at present know nothing? They may have not only five 
senses, but the multiple of five. ‘There are facts which present themselves 
to the intelligent observers of natural phenomena which are difficult to 
explain. But this would explainmuch. Many theories have been adyanced 
in reference to sensation in the insect world. Microscopists and physiologists 
have bent their endeayour to find out the same number of senses as possessed 
by man. Sight we know they have. Touch they certainly possess. Scent 
and taste are probably developed in a yery high degree. Do they possess 
the sense of hearing? Acting on the assumption that the inferior order of 
creatures have the same, and only the same number of senses as men, some 
skilful microscopists have discovered or thought they have discovered in 
a small nucleoid cell at the base of the Bee’s antenna, an articulating 
membrane beneath which passes the antennal nerve, that connects that 
organ with the ganglionic mass of neryes which corresponds to the brain 
in the higher order of animals. Others have gone further, and have thought 
that the fan-like plates of the antenne of the Chafer, which is covered oyer 
with these nuclei, is a kind of compound organ of hearing. Could we be 
sure, that the note of the Cicada, Cricket, or Grasshopper, was intended 
to bring the sexes together, it would demonstrate the fact, that they 
possess the sense of hearing. But do the five senses which man possesses 
seem sufficient to explain many facts in nature? Is it the organ of smell 
that leads the Vulture so many miles as by an unerring power, to the 
carrion of the desert, which must be devoured or it will throw around 
the miasma of death? Is it the sense of smell that brings the Moth with 
certain guidance to the sugar of the Entomologist or the honey of the flower? 
Is it the same cause that constrains and guides the Beetle or the Fly to the 
droppings of cattle, only a few minutes after it has been left upon the 
ground? Granting that the scent may extend to such a distance, it extends 
equally in all directions. But these creatures are drawn most certainly to 
that small spot in the wide circle from which the odour emanates: I 
