4'i SUPPLE BIENT ON 



mere analogy of these organs being frequently placed in the 

 local situation of the nose of other animals. 



Experiments have indeed satisfactorily proved that insects 

 possess the faculty of hearing; but others have as clearly 

 shewn that it is not through the instrumentality of the an- 

 tennaj that they enjoy it, and with regard both to this and 

 the last mentioned faculty, it may be observed, that insects 

 destitute of antenna? naturally, or deprived of them by acci- 

 dent, or design, seem to possess both their smell and hearing 

 unimpaired. 



That the antennse are organs of tact seems more probable 

 than the preceding hypothesis ; but even this conjecture, in 

 its ordinary mode of acceptation, is subject to material objec- 

 tions. The majority of insects in walking certainly carry 

 the antennas in a forward direction, and seem to feel every 

 new object they approach by their means ; but there are 

 other insects which seem with great care to lay their antenna; 

 backward, as if to avoid their coming in contact with any 

 thing they may meet in their advance, and this, notwith- 

 standing the antennas in those same species are much elon- 

 gated, and very flexible. The shortness of the antennas in 

 some species, and their total absence in others, militate also 

 against the presumption in favour of touch. 



It seems probable, on the whole, that tact is one of the 

 functions of these antennae ; but it is equally so from the 

 manner especially in which bees, and the social insects, em- 

 ploy these organs in the very inexplicable communications, 

 which take place among the individuals of those social crea- 

 tures to which we shall have occasion to refer more at large 

 hereafter, that the antennae are the medium of some faculty 

 beyond that of touch, undiscovered by us, and perhaps with- 

 out affinity, or even analogy in mankind. We know that 

 the bat when blinded, for instance, can avoid every ob- 



