INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



SECTION I. 



SENSES OF INSECTS. 



IT was well said by the distinguished Danish natu- 

 ralist, Fabricius, that " nothing in natural history is 

 more abstruse and difficult than an accurate descrip- 

 tion of the senses of animals*" This inherent 

 complexity of the subject appears to have induced 

 Lehmann to undertake the investigation of the senses 

 of insects f. He collected into a focus all that was 

 known previous to his time, though he has added 

 very little from his own observation ; but since that 

 period much has been done by Marcel de Serres, 

 Wollaston, Miiller, and others. 



The chief difficulty of the subject arises from the 

 great physical differences which exist between ani- 

 mals furnished with bones and warm blood, and 

 insects that have neither, rendering all inference from 

 analogy much less to be depended on than if the 

 physical structure of each were similar. When we see 

 an elephant, for example, use his trunk to lift a small 

 piece of money from the ground, we cannot doubt 

 but that he feels the coin as plainly as we should do 

 in lifting it with the hand, and hence the inference 



* Nye Samling as det Danske, &c. ii. 375. 

 f De Sensibus Externis Insectorum, p.l,4to., Gottingge, 1798, 



B 



