ORGANS OF HEARING IN VARIOUS PARTS OF BODY. 117 



different insects in different parts of the body, and 

 there is strong reason to believe that even in the same 

 animal the sensitiveness to sounds is not necessarily- 

 confined to one part. In the cricket, for instance, the 

 sense of hearing appears to be seated partly in the 

 antennae, and partly in the anterior legs. In other 

 cases, as in Corethra, the division appears to be carried 

 still further, and a " chordotonal " organ occurs in each 

 of several segments. 



No doubt the multiplication of complex organs, like 

 our ears, arranged as they are to appreciate a great 

 variety of sounds, would be so great a waste that any 

 theory implying such a state of things would be quite 

 untenable ; but with simple organs, such, for instance, 

 as that of Corethra* (gnat; Fig. 72), the case is 

 different, and there would seem to be an obvious 

 advantage in such organs occurring in different parts 

 of the body, ready to receive sound-waves coming from 

 different directions. Moreover, the different organs 

 exist ; they do not appear to be organs of touch, yet 

 they are clearly organs of sense, and that sense, what- 

 ever it be, whether hearing or any other, and though 

 it may well be simple, and even perhaps confused, 

 must be seated in various parts of the body. The fact 

 of their being so distributed does not make it more 

 improbable that they should be organs of hearing, than 

 of any other sense. 



At the same time, it is an interesting result of recent 

 investigations that the auditory organs of insects are 

 not only situated in various parts of the body, but are 

 constructed on such different principles. 



♦ Where, however, the number does not approach to that in certain 

 Medusae (see ante, p. 84). 



