25 



you first attribute to them an organ which is absolutely 

 undiscoverable, and then allow them intelligence, and all 

 that it supposes, or requires, into the bargain! 



SMELL. We have seen that those who would assign 

 to insects the full complement of the senses, are in diffi- 

 culty where to lodge some of them ; and well they may ! 

 In the case of smell, to detect the ordinary organ is so 

 impossible, that it has recently been conjectured by 

 Audouin, to consist in a porosity of the whole body, 

 thus rendering it accessible every u-here to volatile ema^ 

 nations. As to the a priori argument for the necessity 

 of such a sense, it is alledged that insects, in an apart- 

 ment, never fail to detect and resort to those substances 

 of which the properties delight them; and that as this 

 could not be accomplished by sight (supposing them to 

 have it,) nor by taste, before they have tasted, it can only 

 be by smell that the discovery is made; and that with 

 them, the invisible nostril, as in man, the visible, must be 

 purveyor to the palate. Yet how often do insects precipi- 

 tate themselves with greediness on substances without 

 odour ? What smell is there in sugar, treacle, honey, 

 flour, and the many vegetable substances on which insects 

 swarm, and even travel from a distance to seek? How 

 many tribes of them hover around flowers perfectly void 

 of odour 1 The fact is that its own insect lodges and boards 

 within almost every corolla, and that there is hardly any 

 thing in nature, alive or dead, animal, vegetable, or even 

 mineral, which does not invite and support its insect popu- 

 lation. The forest fly slings the impatient herd; the bot 

 burrows in the carrion ; the moss-rose is powdered with 

 its green parasites ; the cabbage is eaten by the caterpillar; 

 $e galeruca rides upon the water lily ! in most of which 

 'instances, to suppose the allurement of smell would be 

 perfectly gratuitous. It is not even necessary to conclude 

 that the larvae of Dermestes, Necrophores, Anthrajnae, 

 Staphylini, etc. are invited by the smell of putrefaction; 



