200 SENSE OF TOUCH. 



victim, that the insidious Ichneumon thus inserts her antennae; 

 but since the holes are always so deep as to prevent the pos- 

 sibility of her thus reaching the grubs, as they live at the 

 bottom, it seems much more probable according to the opinion 

 of the writer in question, that she rather employs them as 

 ears to detect any sound of eating or moving from the occu- 

 pant of the nest. 



Various other Insects have been observed to direct their 

 antennae towards the quarter whence noise proceeds. Among 

 these, the long-horned (or long-eared) tribe of Grasshoppers 

 and Crickets, are (as Eennie remarks) especially alive to the 

 sounds which usually give notice of the approach of friend or 

 foe. such as the rustle of a leaf or the foot-fall of an Insect 

 brother. The same naturalist observed a green Grasshopper 

 incline an attentive ear to the rustle of a piece of paper under 

 the table where it was placed, bending its long antennae, or 

 one of them, in the direction of the sound. 



It would seem then scarcely to be doubted that Insects hear 

 with their antennae ; and that with the same instrument they 

 also touch and feel, appears almost as evident. For it is in the 

 exercise of touch and feeling applied to purposes of social inter- 

 course, that these flexible appendages are constantly employed 

 by Ants and Bees, which are said, on this account, to converse 

 by antennal language. Nor does this supposed use of them at 

 all militate against that of the same organs for conveyance of 

 sound. These, however, are all matters of inquiry on which a 



