26 



nay, that circumv dilation of cow-dung, of which every 

 specimen, as Mr. Geoffrey has observed, contains a per- 

 fect treasure for the entomologist, supplies but doubtful 

 proof that its effluvia constitute the attraction. 



Flies, however, abound near sugar ; and the saccharine 

 principle, in almost any shape, invites the wasp into our 

 rooms. But can you make it out to be the organ of smell 

 that conducts them ? To us sugar has no smell ; and to 

 suggest that wasps have a finer nostril than ours, loses 

 sight of a very obvious objection ; which is, that before 

 we invest the insect with such gratuitous delicacy in the 

 perception of odours,lhe existence of the odour itself should 

 be something more than a mere supposition, for it is only 

 by our own senses, which are here at fault, that we can 

 judge of the properties of bodies. 



Think you that the minute and swarming hordes of 

 Apions, whose burnished blue and green relieve the else 

 unvaried yellow of the flaming sun- flower, do really insert 

 those long snouts of theirs into the plant in quest of an 

 unknown aroma, or not rather to extract its well known 

 honey ? The OEdemera haunts the perfectly scentless wild 

 flower. Those minute insect gems, the Alticce, do they 

 for this lie blazing in the hearts of so many flowers quite 

 inodorous to us, and, we will presume, to them ? Do such 

 general flower fanciers as the punctuated Donacea, the 

 Necydalis, or the Cistela Sulphur ea, do the blue and scaly 

 Hoplice, or the lovely sisterhood of the Leptura*, take 

 lodgings amidst scentless petals, when others are to be had, 

 and yet pretend to noses ? as if it was not their mothers' 

 doing, who placed every one of them there before they 

 had any pretensions to a nostril 1 



We have now written certain pages, which of course we 

 expect the candid reader so to examine as to merit this 

 epithet at our hands. Perhaps he will think we expect too 

 much. Eyes, he will say, and not to see with ! to what 

 end the orr/an, if not to execute the function^ Yet ex- 



