it has been referred successively to their stigma- 

 ta, their palpi, and their antennae. 



It is said that Clerck, in a discourse held be- 

 fore the Royal Academy of Science, at Stock- 

 holm, in 1764, first maintained that the anten- 

 nae of insects were their organs of smell. He 

 was led to this opinion by observing that certain 

 beetles when alighting on flowers which were 

 grateful to them, opened the palates of their an- 

 tenna3; and Bergmann relates, that he has often 

 seen the ichneumon jaculator prying with its an- 

 tennae into the holes which contained the grubs 

 of the sphix figuli, as if to smell them out. 



Again, the peculiarities of vision enjoyed by 

 the insect tribes in connection with their variety 

 of structure, are at once pleasing and wonderful. 

 Independently of the various directions in which 

 vision may be carried by some tribes, modern 

 discovery has shown, that its minuteness, as 

 contrasted with that of man, is almost incon- 

 ceivable, and that monadic animals, or such as 

 are microscopic to our ken, are easily visible to 

 the naked eye of insects ; and that some insects 

 more especially the aquatic larvae make these 

 monades the chief objects of their chase and nu- 

 triment. A new world would be open to eyes 

 capable of perceiving microscopic animals ; how 

 distinctly would the curious forms of the tribes 

 of aphides that cling to the rose branch be dis- 

 cerned yet not more so than they must be by 

 their determined and voracious destroyer, the 

 larva of the hemerobius j how obvious would ap- 



