42 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



SENSES OF INSECTS. 

 By G. a. K. Marshall, F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



I HAVE read with much interest the discussion lately carried 

 on by Mr. Watson and Mr. J. Arkle on the above subject (Entom. 

 xxviii. 30, 243). But the article of the latter gentleman calls, 

 I think, for some remark ; for with regard to several subjects 

 dealt with therein he takes up a position which seems to me to 

 be wholly untenable. 



The writer would appear to have a grievance against entomolo- 

 gists in general for their laudable efforts to explain the reason of 

 and uses for the large variety of sounds produced by the insect 

 world ; and although he is content to summarily dismiss the 

 *' stories of scientific observations" in a short and somewhat con- 

 temptuous passage, which casts a decided slur on those who made 

 the observations, yet I notice that he offers no adequate theory 

 or explanation to take the place of that which has fallen a victim 

 to his iconoclastic efforts. He approaches the whole subject in a 

 distinctly biassed and anti-scientific mood, the key-note of which is 

 struck in the following passage : — '* Nature has landscape sounds 

 for our ears, just as she provides scents for the smell or colours 

 for the eye." The idea which underlies that theory of the old 

 naturalists, that fossils were only put into the rocks for the amuse- 

 ment and delectation of mankind, is dying harder than I thought. 

 It would be quite foreign to my present purpose to try and combat 

 that idea, and I will merely observe that the explanation given for 

 the occurrence of unpleasant sounds and smells, viz., that they 

 prevent monotony, has certainly the merit of quaintness if nothing 

 else, though I fear it would hardly stand investigation. 



But, leaving the subject of general principles, I have other 

 *' bones to pick" with Mr. Arkle. He says that "sensitiveness 

 to concussion or vibration is an entirely different thing from 

 hearing." This I certainly cannot agree with, and it looks to me 

 very much like a case of petitio principii. With all due deference 

 I would suggest that hearing is merely a localised and highly 

 specialised sensitiveness to vibration. In other words, that the 

 auditory apparatus is an organ specially adapted for receiving and 

 recording those vibrations of the air, known as sound waves, which 

 are too delicate to be felt by the other ordinarily sensitive portions 

 of the body. Indeed I should consider that the difference between 

 the sense of hearing and that of touch is only one of degree and 

 not of kind. There is little doubt that such auditory powers as are 

 possessed by insects are of a very different character from those 

 possessed by man, as they are not nearly so highly specialised or 

 differentiated, and it is extremely probable that they are in many 

 instances nearly allied to, or even combined with, the faculties of 

 touch. I quite fail to understand Mr. Arkle's strong desire to 



