308 PTILOTA : INTERNAL ANATOMY. 



ville, and Latreille, consider the antennae in this light. 

 Marcel de Serres and Bonnsdorf, as well as Christian, con- 

 ceive the palpi to be smelling organs. Comparetti described 

 various cavities and cells in the front of the head, which he 

 regarded as performing the office of a nose ; but his asser- 

 tions have never been confirmed. Treviranus considered the 

 entire mucous lining of the mouth as the organ of smell ; 

 whilst Kirby and Spence give the name of rhinarium, or 

 nostril piece, to the membrane connecting the skull and the 

 clypeus (which they call the nose), and have described a pair 

 of circular pulpy cushions under the clypeus and rhinarium, 

 covered by a membrane transversely streaked with beautifully 

 fine stria;, as the organs of smell, which they discovered in 

 the burying-beetle (Necrophorus vespillo) and some others. 

 But these discoveries are not confirmed by other and more 

 elaborate insect anatomists, who have discovered no similar 

 organ, nor do Kirby and Spence indicate how scents can 

 pass through the rhinarium. 



(rf) The Sense of Taste. If we have noticed the flesh-fly, 

 as affording a proof of the existence of scent in insects, the 

 same insect may be again cited to prove that insects are not 

 deficient in the sense of taste. Indeed, to suppose that ani- 

 mals, having such a beautifully constructed and complicated 

 oral apparatus as is exhibited by the mouths of insects, which 

 also exhibit such discrimination and fastidiousness in the 

 choice of their food, should be deficient in this sense, seems 

 not to be very philosophical, although such has been asserted 

 by Rudolphi and some other physiologists. That this sense 

 is seated in some part of the mouth or digestive organs is, 

 however, generally admitted. Some authors, indeed, have 

 supposed it to exist in the palpi, whilst others regard it as 

 seated in the pharynx, or at the commencement of the 

 throat. The tongue, however, is more generally regarded 

 as its real seat, this being a fleshy organ in many insects, 



