158 



ANTENNA. 



express exercise of feeling or touch ; and thus, in th 

 implements with which mind should work, we find th 

 butterfly and the black-beetle much better furnishe< 

 than the chimpansee ; that is, we find those animal 

 to which nobody thinks of attributing mind, furnishe 

 with specific organs that have been shown to be of n 

 use without mind ; while those again to which man; 

 are so prone to concede the inferior sort of reason 

 have no such organs nothing which can be regardet 

 as expressly and exclusively the seat of touch, inas 

 much as all their organs answer other and well-known 

 purposes. Nay, even in man, where we readily admi 

 the existence of mind, there is no separate organ o 

 touch ; and that which is called the tactual sensibility 

 of the hands and fingers, appears to be, in truth 

 nothing more than one of those properties which, com 

 bined, render a man's hands so efficient to him ir 

 the earning of his bread. The notion of feeling 

 (that is, touch, so as in any way to know the thing 

 touched) must therefore be abandoned in the case o 

 antennae, otherwise the greatest absurdity and incon- 

 sistcnce must be admitted to exist in nature, which 

 would be equally inconsistent with the analogy anc 

 the fact. 



The other conjectures as to the specific use oi 

 those organs are equally destitute of foundation ; 

 and if it were not that they get repeated by ignorant 

 compilers, and thus spoil the philosophy of natural 

 history, the great beauty and the supreme utility ol 

 the whole, they would be very ludicrous. They put 

 one very much in mind of the arguments of the two 

 rustics at the fair, when the one laboured to convince 

 the other that the proboscis of the elephant was a 

 nose, and the other strove as zealously to convince 

 him that it was a tail. 



The younger Huber (whose father made some im- 

 portant additions to the natural history of insects) 

 fancied that the antennae, at least those of ants, were 

 a sort of telegraphs, by which these insects could 

 communicate with each other at a distance. To this 

 assertion, in the case of the ants, there is only one 

 little objection the utter impossibility of knowing 

 whether it is or is not the fact ; but then there are 

 very many species of insects furnished with propor- 

 tionally larger and more elaborately formed antennae, 

 which spend the greater part of their time under 

 stones, below the surface of the ground, or otherwise 

 in concealment; and of these not a few come abroad 

 only in the dark, so they could not by possibility 

 make the least use of their telegraphs. The telegraph 

 system must therefore be given up, not as so faulty in 

 philosophy as that of the feelers, but as being very 

 palpably absurd in fact. 



There is a third conjecture, which, though it has 

 been made, and is sometimes still supported by learned 

 professors, seems very fit company for the other two. 

 The gist of it is, that the antennae are organs of 

 hearing, a curious sort of ears as it were. But, truly, 

 organs consisting of a series of horny tubes, jointed 

 together, even though abundantly furnished with 

 muscles and nerves, and susceptible of much motion, 

 are so unlike any organs which are known to be ears, 

 that the assumption seems at first sight almost as ludi- 

 crous as if one were to maintain that the pincher claws 

 of crabs and lobsters are wings. But attempts have 

 been made to demonstrate the assumption by obser- 

 vations. A certain learned Swede was one day ex- 

 amining through a small telescope a nut-weevil, which 

 was in a state of repose, with the antenna- flaccid 



and drooping. The professor made " a loud sound," 

 and the weevil pricked up its antennae, and was off in 

 an instant. How loud a sound, or of what particular 

 tone or intonance, the professor was capable of giving 

 out, is not recorded ; but the writer of this article has 

 again and again observed insects during very loud 

 peals of thunder remain perfectly quiescent, and never 

 once prick up their antennae, or give the least sign of 

 hearing by means of these organs. When a musket is 

 fired, too, it raises all the birds which are in the tree 

 or the coppice, as it may be ; but nobody ever heard 

 of the mere report of a musket raising all the butter- 

 flies, or especially bringing out all the moths. But 

 the external ears of birds are small, and sound may 

 be regarded as in some sort deadened to them by the. 

 feathers of the ear coverts ; therefore if antennas were 

 ears, in the common acceptation of the term and if 

 that is not made out there is really nothing made out 

 the moths, as having proportionally the largest ones, 

 should be the first to start at the noise, and all the 

 butterflies and beetles should be on the move long 

 before a single bird moves a wing. The other sup- 

 posed proofs of the hearing faculty of the antennae 

 which have been adduced are not better than that 

 of the Swedish professor, but it is only justice to the 

 parties to say that they are not worse. 



It may seem trifling to enter into any thing like a 

 refutation of assertions which are so completely with- 

 out foundation, and in the judgment of common sense 

 so ludicrously absurd; but they originate with those 

 who, upon other points, claim the confidence of man- 

 kind, and thus they come in for their share of that 

 confidence ; and so, upon the strength of the other 

 parts of the characters of their abettors, they do 

 their full share of mischief to the young and the 

 ignorant; hence, upon all subjects of which we are 

 totally ignorant the greatest service that can be done, 

 both to the unwary and to those who are seeking 

 for knowledge, is to clear away the rubbish. 



Under this impression, the writer of this article has 

 observed and examined, with perhaps more care and 

 attention than the subject deserves, to ascertain whe- 

 ther there is any invariable connection between sound 

 and the excitement of the antennae of insects, apart 

 rom or preceding the excitement of the insects them- 

 selves ; and though, not knowing what it was, he 

 :annot say positively that he has tested the talismanic 

 sound made by the Swedish professor, yet he must 

 say, that in all his observations there has not appeared 

 he smallest tittle, even of presumptive evidence, that 

 antennae are ears. They are excitable organs cer- 

 ainly ; but by what they are excited, and for what 

 >urposcs, are points yet to be ascertained. 



There is another argument which bears strongly 

 igainst the hearing faculty of those organs ; and that 

 s, that many of the Crustacea which are furnished 

 vith them are inhabitants of the water, of which even 

 he vertebrated inhabitants are generally without any 

 xternal ears, and such as have them have very small 

 penings without any projecting organ ; and it seems 

 loubtful whether those openings are the inlets of 

 hat we call sound or not. It is true that fishes are 

 rovided with certain porcelainous bodies which 

 lave been supposed to be in some way connected 

 >'ith a sense so far resembling that of hearing as it is 

 ossible for a sense acting in water to resemble one 

 f which air is the direct and proper medium. But 

 riese bodies in fishes are internal, and that they ar^ 

 onnected with any kind of sensation is an assumption 



