AUDITORY SENSE OF HONEY-BEE 185 



stimuli, but it appears too crude to act as a sound-wave receptor, 

 unless it is able to receive sound vibrations of a very low fre- 

 quency. The most reasonable function that the writer can think 

 of is the one suggested by Demoll ('17), that it may serve as a 

 statical organ to register the movements of the flagellum. Since 

 there can be no muscular sense in the flagellum, because this part 

 of the antenna possesses no muscles, such an organ would seem 

 very useful. The scape or first antennal segment (fig. 3, i) 

 contains many muscle fibers, most of which run to the articula- 

 tion between the first and second segments. These muscles can 

 only move the flagellum about in all directions, but cannot bend 

 it. Since the antenna is the chief tactile organ of the bee and 

 must be carefully operated, the only way of bending the many- 

 jointed flagellum is by blood pressure. The blood bathes all 

 the internal structures, and consequently any change in its 

 pressure would affect the articular membrane. Even if the 

 Johnston's organ in the honey-bee receives sound vibrations of 

 a low frequency, or functions in any other way suggested above, 

 we should probably classify it as a tactile organ rather than as an 

 auditory organ. 



Child ('94 b) says that the function of Johnston's organ is in 

 general to receive original touch stimuli; it can, however, in a 

 broader sense receive the stimuh of sound vibrations. The 

 auditory stimuli are to be thought of as modified touch stimuh. 

 When the same organ serves both as touch and auditory recep- 

 tors, as is possible in mosquitoes and midges, then the insect will 

 be able to differentiate between the touch response and auditory 

 response. 



According to Child, this organ is of hypodermal origin, arising 

 from a ringlike fold near the antennal funnels which are in- 

 vaginated in the head. 



Several years ago the writer discovered two groups of olfactory 

 pores on the base of the antenna, but they are here described for 

 the first time. One group of about twenty-five pores lies among 

 a bunch of tactile hairs on the distal end of the articular knob 

 or condyle (fig. 3, Co), and the other group {Pot) of twelve pores 

 Hes on the proximal end of the scape. So far as known, these are 



