260 SENSES OF INSECTS. 



which they receive the impressions from external objects, 

 that analogy would lead us to expect a difference of this 

 kind also in the sense of smell. Besides, smell does not 

 invariably accompany respiratory organs even in the 

 higher animals, for we breathe with our mouths, but do 

 not smell with them. Cuvier says that the internal mem- 

 brane of the tracheae being soft and moist, appears cal- 

 culated to receive scents a . But here his memory failed 

 him ; for it is the external membrane alone that answers 

 this description ; the internal consisting of a spiral elastic 

 thread, and seeming not at all fitted to receive impressions, 

 but merely to convey the air b . That nerves penetrate 

 to the bronchiae, does riot necessarily imply that they are 

 connected with the sense in question, since this may be 

 to act upon the muscles which are every where distri- 

 buted. 



I shall now state some facts that seem to prove that 

 scents are received by some organ in the vicinity of the 

 mouth, and probably connected with the nose. M. P. Hu- 

 ber, desirous of ascertaining the seat of smell in bees, 

 tried the following experiments with that view. These 

 animals, of all ill scents, abominate most that of the oil 

 of turpentine. He presented successively to all the 

 points of a bee's body, a hair-pencil saturated with it: but 

 whether he presented it to the abdomen, the trunk, or 

 the head, the animal equally disregarded it. Next, 

 using a very fine hair-pencil, while the bee had extended 

 its proboscis, he presented the pencil to it, to the eyes 

 and antennae, without producing any effect; but when he 

 pointed it near the cavity of the mouth, above the insertion 



a Ubi supr, b See above, p. 63. Sprengel Commentar. 1 4 . 



