ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 73 
exercise of this faculty. Doubtless the plumes of 
the gnat, the leaves of the cockchafer, the beaded 
filaments of the wasp, and the other countless forms 
which the antennz assume in different tribes, have a 
direct relation to the several habits of the insects 
which wear them. But, besides all special adapta- 
tions, the proper function of the antenne seems to 
be that of an instrument of communication in the 
social tribes, and of an wie of hearing in insects 
generally.* 
The first of these functions has been assigned to 
these organs by the common consent of all natu- 
_ralists. What form the communication takes to 
become intelligible cannot be known, but by means 
of these little jointed threads, a kind of: freemasonry 
is maintained among the members of a colony, and 
such a fact as the presence of the queen is trans- 
mitted, even through a grating, with as much accu- 
racy as along the telegraphic wires. Ants and bees 
seem to converse, and call for assistance, by contact 
of their antennze, just as the deaf and dumb do by 
motion or contact of their hands. Wasps, which 
are less sociable among themselves, and work singly, 
are perhaps less demonstrative in this way than 
bees and ants, and exhibit less of this interchange of 
feelings. But they have means of telling one another 
what is going on, and very accurately, too, if the 
curious observation that a wasps’-nest may be 
attacked with impunity if the outsiders be kept from 
* See Newport, On the Use of the Antenne of Insects, ‘ Trans- 
actions of the Entomological Society of London,’ Vol. II, p. 229. 
1837—40. 
