A. M. Mayer—Researches in Acoustics. 103 
the proboscis in length. In the male, however, the length and 
perfect development of the palpi would lead us to look for the 
seat of the tactile sense elsewhere, and, in fact, we find the two 
apical antennal joints to be long, moveable, and comparatively 
rom hairs; and the relative motion of the remaining joints 
very much more limited.” 
y experiments on the mosquito began late in the fall, and 
therefore I was not able to extend them to other insects. This 
spring I purpose to resume the research, and will ex riment 
especially on those orthoptera and hemiptera which voluntarily 
emit distinct and characteristic sounds, 
4. Suggestions as to the function of the Spiral Scale of the 
Cochlew, leading to an Hypothesis of the Mechanism of Audition. 
As the auditory nerve has by far its highest development in 
the cochlea, it is a natural inference that this part of t e ear is 
chiefly concerned in audition, and that the very peculiar form 
of the cochlea fulfills some important function; yet the rela- 
tions of this form to the mode of audition has occupied but 
destroy the wave after it has once done its work?” Dr. Draper 
then reasons that this reverberation is prevented by the scale 
being of different lengths and by the fact of their junction in 
the helicotrema. These two circumstances give rise to inter- 
4 
