OF INSECTS. 183 



instances of this. When to all these we add the 

 negative consideration,, that the antennae are strangers 

 to taste and smell, and subservient to touch only in 

 a secondary degree, no alternative seems left but to 

 regard them as organs of hearing. 



It may he proper, however, to adu, that Latreille 

 considered the seat of this sense to be two small 

 ipertures which he detected near the inner edge of 

 he eye in Lepidoptera ; M. de Blainville, two open- 

 ngs in the posterior part of the head, visible in 

 Cicada; M. J. Miiller, two cavities in the dorsal 

 )ortion of the metathorax, which he noticed in a 

 species of Gryllus; and, finally, M. Treviranus, a 

 sort of membranous drum, situated on the forehead 

 >f certain nocturnal Lepidoptera. All these parts 

 are too inconspicuous to have any claim to the im- 

 )ortant function under consideration ; besides, they 

 lave been observed, (nay, they may be safely affirmed 

 ;o exist) only in a few species, whereas the sense 

 that has been ascribed to them must be universal 

 throughout the class. 



Taste is one of the senses w r hose organs have not 

 :>een fully determined. Judging from analogy, it 

 should reside in that part of the mouth corresponding 

 to the tongue, and as that exists in tolerable distinct" 

 ness in many tribes, it has usually been assigned 

 thereto. The membrane which lines the interior 

 of the oral cavity, doubtlessly shares in this function ; 

 and in the suctorial races, which probably possess i* 

 in a very inferior degree, it must have its seat at the 



