354 THE SENSORIAL FUNCTIONS. 



insects possess, besides these, a pair of short feelers, 

 placed behind the maxillary palpi ; and it has been 

 observed that, while the insect is taking food, these 

 organs are in incessant motion, and are continually 

 employed in touching and examining the food, 

 before it is introduced into the mouth : hence, some 

 entomologists have concluded that they are organs 

 of taste. But it must be obvious that in this, as in 

 every other instance in which our researches extend 

 to beings of such minute dimensions, and which 

 occupy a station, in the order of sensitive existence, 

 so remote from ourselves, we are wandering into 

 regions where the only light that is afforded us 

 must be borrowed from vague and fanciful analo- 

 gies, or created by the force of a vivid and deceptive 

 imagination. 



Chapter IV. 



SMELL. 



Animal life being equally dependent on the salu- 

 brious qualities of the air respired, as of the food 

 received, a sense has been provided for discrimi- 

 nating the nature of the former, as well as of the 

 latter. As the organs of taste are placed at the 

 entrance of the alimentary canal, so those of 

 smell usually occupy the beginning of the passages 

 for respiration, where a distinct nerve, named the 

 olfactory, appropriated to this office, is distributed. 

 The sense of smell is generally of greater im- 

 portance to the lower animals than that of taste ; 



