66 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



in butterflies and moths in the sucker, and in flies 

 (Muscidce) and locusts, in certain cells in the fore- 

 head. M. Christ, again, supposed that insects smell 

 near objects with their antennules (palpi), and re- 

 mote ones with their antennae*. Reaumur, conceiv- 

 ing the antennae to be the organs of smell, concluded 

 that they inspired air, and upon immersing the knobs 

 of the antennae of a butterfly in water, he actually 

 perceived minute bubbles of air issuing from them t ; 

 but Lehmann disproved the conclusion by removing 

 the bubbles, formed as he thinks merely from the 

 air in the exterior sculpture, for it could not pene- 

 trate the interior, and no more bubbles were formed 

 after the first J. 



Kirby and Spence, on the other hand, carrying the 

 argument from analogy farther than their predecessors, 

 assign several reasons, chiefly from anatomy and 

 from the preceding experiments of Huber, that the 

 organ of smell in insects is " the extremity of the 

 nose, between it and the upper lip, or under those 

 parts :" and " that the nose corresponds with the 

 so named part in Mammalia, both from its situation 

 and often from its form, must be evident," they think, 

 " to every one who looks at an insect ." They after- 

 wards describe what they call the " nostril piece 

 (I'hinarium) " in the burying beetle (Necrophorus 

 Vespillo), the water-beetle (Dytiscus marginalis), 

 and one of the dragon-flies (JEshna varia, SHAW). 



Did insects breathe by any part of their head the 

 mystery of smell would be less ; but so far as re- 

 searches have hitherto been made, this is not the case, 

 for no spiracles have been discovered in the head, 



* Naturgeschichte der Hymenopterorum, p. 24. 



f Memoires, i. 224. 

 { De Sensibus Externis, 31. 

 Intr. iv. 256. 



