116 



INSECT MISCELLANIES, 



Amongst the authors who have advocated the 

 opinion of antennae being the organ of hearing, 

 BonsdorfF appears to have been amongst the first *; 

 and his statements were followed up and extended by 

 M. Christ f and Goze, the latter holding it a good 

 argument that insects erect their antenna as other 

 animals do their ears J, but which Lehmann, full of 

 his own notion of aeroscepsy, treats as a mere con- 

 jecture, devised because they could find no other 

 parts like the ears of other animals . Comparetti, 

 an Italian naturalist, however, persuaded himself that 

 he could demonstrate an organ of hearing in insects, 

 consisting of certain little sacs (Sacculi), filled with 

 fluid, in hollows under the bulbs of the eyes, and 

 pellucid ducts convoluted and intermingled with 

 white filaments of nerves, distinct from the vessels of 

 the wind-pipes (tracheee). Of these he has given 

 minute descriptions as they appear in the field-cricket, 

 the locust, the cicada, the white butterfly, the dragon- 

 fly, the hornet, the common fly (Musca domestica), 

 the ant, the bee, and in spiders |(. 



Whether this be, in fact, part of the internal appa- 

 ratus for hearing in insects, we cannot tell ; but, at all 

 events, from being situated near the base of the 

 antennae, it does not contradict the position we have 

 maintained. The same is also confirmed in a re- 

 markable manner by the known situation of the ears 

 in crabs and lobsters, which agree with insects in 

 possessing antennae. At the base of the antenna?, 

 accordingly, in crustaceous animals, are two moveable 

 organs in the form of protuberant papillae, but 

 thicker and harder than the shell that covers the 

 body. The centre of these is perforated with a 

 round hole, over which, in the living animal, an 



* De Usu Antennarum. f Der Hymenopterorum, p. 53. 



Natur. Menschenl. und Voreseh. v. 389. 



De Sensibus Externis, p. 26. 

 || De Aure interna comparata, pp. 287 304. 



