SENSES OF INSECTS. 24-5 



were very merry, and continued singing all the day; but 

 a rap at the door would stop them instantly. By prac- 

 tice he learned to imitate their chirping : when he did 

 this at the door, at first a few would answer him in a 

 low note, and then the whole party would take up the 

 tune and sing with all their might. He once shut up 

 a male in his garden, and gave the female her liberty ; 

 but as soon as she heard the male chirp, she flew to him 

 immediately a . 



But although physiologists are for the most part agreed 

 that insects have the ordinary five senses of vertebrate 

 animals, yet a great variety of opinions has obtained as 

 to their external organs ; so that it has been matter of 

 doubt, for instance, whether the antennce are for smell, 

 touch, or hearing; and the palpi for smell, taste, or 

 touch. Nor has the question, as it appears to me, baen 

 satisfactorily decided : for though it is now the most 

 general opinion that the primary use of antennas is to 

 explore as factors, yet by the most strenuous advocates 

 of this opinion they are owned not to be universally so 

 employed ; so that granting this to be one of their prin- 

 cipal functions, yet it seems to follow that there may be 

 another common to them all, which of course would be 

 their primary function. We are warned, however, not 

 to lay any stress upon the argument to be drawn from 

 analogy ; and told that we might as well dispute about 

 the identity of the nose of a man, the proboscis of the 

 elephant, the horn of the rhinoceros, the crest of the 

 cock, or the beak of the toucan 5 . But this is merely 



a Lehman n De Sens. Extern. Animal. Exsang. 22 , 

 b Ibid. DC Antenn. Insect, ii. 70. 



