

110 THE UNIVERSE. 



animals, receive the first pair of nerves which issue from 

 the brain ; and some experiments conducted by Duges tend 

 to show that they really represent the organ of smell. 

 After cutting them in some butterflies and flies, this physi- 

 ologist observed that they could no longer roam in search 

 of their food and the female insect. 



But the extreme acuteness of smell manifested by some 

 insects is only obtained by means of organs of marvellous 

 delicacy, and so complicated as to surpass at times all our 

 preconceived ideas. Man and the larger animals have 

 never more than two olfactory cavities ; in fishes these are 

 reduced to a pair of little sacks scarcely to be seen. In 

 the May-bug odors are perceived by means of microscopic 

 pouches, but instead of being limited to two, these pouches 

 are many thousands in number. Here the infinitely little 

 surpasses the infinitely great ; the insect outstrips the ele- 

 phant. 



There must necessarily be organs of hearing in insects, 

 because they are attracted together by certain sounds, and 

 even possess a very varied set of instruments wherewith to 

 produce sounds. But we do not yet know where their audi- 

 tory apparatus is. 1 



One very extraordinary fact is that these animals only 



1 Latreille seems to think that the auditory organ of insects may be seated at the 

 base of the antennae, because in certain Orthoptera there are at this spot traces 

 of the membranes of the tympanum, as is observed in some crustaceans. 



In order to omit none of the recent conquests of science, we should also men- 

 tion that Cnvier and Dumeril place the seat of smell at the orifice of those small 

 openings, like button-holes, called stigmata, by which the air enters the trachea. 

 And, in fact, there is here a manifest analogy with the position of the nose, which, 

 in the large animals, is placed at the entrance to the respiratory apparatus. 



