INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



that the trunk of the elephant is an organ of touch 

 follows of course. But when we see an ichneumon fly 

 vibrating its long antennae before the entrance of a 

 bee's nest, and sometimes even inserting one or both 

 of them into the hole as if to explore its contents, we 

 are not thence entitled to conclude that the antenna? 

 are organs of touch, for they may, with as much pro- 

 bability, be inferred to be organs of hearing employed 

 to listen to sounds produced by the inhabitant of 

 the nest. It would also be too hasty, as it appears 

 to us, to infer that flies, gnats, and moths, are en- 

 dowed with eyes of very quick sight, because we find 

 it difficult to approach them without putting them to 

 flight; for the earth-worm (Lumbricus terrestris, 

 LINN.) will retreat with similar rapidity into its 

 hole when the light of a candle is thrown upon it at 

 night *, though no anatomist has ever discovered its 

 eyes, nor believes that it has any; and the insects al- 

 luded to may be warned of the approach of danger 

 by smell, by hearing, or by touch from slight changes 

 in the currents of air, as probably as by sight. 

 Analogy, it would thence appear, is very apt to mis- 

 lead ; and as we have little else to go upon in the 

 subject of the senses in insects, we can seldom as- 

 certain the facts with minute accuracy, and must rest 

 contented with probabilities and approximations to 

 the truth. 



Respecting one point there can be no doubt, 

 namely, that an object must always be present in order 

 to produce a sensation or feeling; light and colours 

 being in this manner the objects of the sense of see- 

 ing, and sound of the sense of hearing. In man the 

 impression made by light upon the eye or by sound 

 upon the ear passes along peculiar nerves to the 

 brain, as the signal from a distant telegraph is 

 communicated to a metropolis, In insects we may 

 * J.R. 



