348 The Huntrng Wasps 



attribute to animals our own means of percep- 

 tion and do not dream that they might easily 

 possess others of which it is impossible for lis 

 to have an exact idea because there is nothini^ 

 like them in ourselves. Are we quite certain 

 that they are not equipped, in very varying 

 degrees, for the purpose of sensations as foreign 

 to ourselves as the sensation of colours would 

 be if we were blind ? Has matter no secrets 

 left for us ? Are we so very sure that it is re- 

 vealed to the living being only by light, sound, 

 taste, smell and touch ? Physics and chemistry, 

 young though they be, already declare to us 

 that the dark unknown contains an enormous 

 harvest, in comparison with which our scientific 

 sheaf is the merest penury. A new sense, per- 

 haps that which dwells in the grotesquely exag- 

 gerated nose of the Rhinolophus,^ perhaps that 

 which dwells in the antennae of the Ammophila, 

 would open to our search a world which our 

 physical structure no doubt condemns us to 

 leave for ever unexplored. Cannot certain pro- 

 perties of matter, which have no perceptible 

 action upon us, find a receptive echo in animals, 

 which are differently equipped ? 



When Spallanzani,2 after blinding some Bats, 



' The Horseshoe Bat. — Translator's Note. 

 '^ Lazaro Spallanzani (1729- 1799), the great Italian naturahst. — 

 Translator^ s Note. 



