416 THE INSECTA. $ 335. 
§ 335. 
There is the same uncertainty concerning the organs of Audition. 
Experience having long shown that most Insecta perceive sounds, this sense: 
has been located sometimes in this, and sometimes in that organ. But in 
these opinions, it often seems to have been forgotten or unthought of, that 
there can be no auditive organ, without a special auditive nerve which 
connects directly with an acoustic apparatus capable of receiving, conduct- 
ing, and concentrating the sonorous undulations. 
Certain Orthoptera are the only Insecta with which there has been dis- 
covered, in these later times, a single organ having the conditions essential 
to an auditive apparatus. This organ consists, with the Acrididae, of two 
fossae or conchs, surrounded by a projecting horny ring, and at the base of 
which is stretched a membrane resembling a Tympanum. On the internal 
surface of this membrane, are two horny processes to which is attached an 
extremely delicate vesicle filled with a transparent fluid and representing 
a membranous labyrinth. This vesicle is in connection with an auditory 
nerve which arises from the third thoracic ganglion, forms a ganglion upon 
the tympanum, and terminates in the immediate neighborhood of the 
labyrinth by a collection of cuneiform, staff-like bodies with very finely- 
pojnted extremities (primitive nerve-fibres?), which are surrounded by 
loosely-aggregated, ganglionic globules.” 
The Locustidae and Achetidae have a similar organ, situated in the 
136, Taf. VIII. fig. 5, 6), the olfactory organ of the 
Muscidae is a double, oblong fossa, situated under 
the antennae,-and covered by a plicated membrane 
formed by the cutaneous envelope, which is other- 
wheres solid and dry. Until lately, from the time of 
Réaumur, the sense of smell has heen located in 
the antennae, although they present no trace of a 
humid surface, and have none of the anatomical 
and physiological conditions requisite for being the 
seat of this function. See Lefébvre, Aun. d. la 
Soc. entom. d. France, VII. p. 395, or Ann. 
d..Sc. Nat. XI. 1839, p. 191; and Kister, Isis, 
1844, p. 647. The same objections might be raised 
against the opinion of Marcel de Serres (Ann. du 
Mus. XVII. p. 426), who locates this sense, with 
the Orthoptera, in the palpi. Equally groundless 
appears the view of Baster quoted by Straus 
(Consider. &c. p. 420), that this sense is seated in 
the stigmata of the tracheae. T'reviranus seeks to 
avoid the difficulty in supposing that the entire 
buccal cavity, which is humid, can receive odorous 
impressions. Erichson (Diss. de fabr. et usu an- 
tenn. in Insect., Berlin, 1847) has recently appeared 
anew in favor of the antennae. According to him, 
the numerous small fossae of these organs are cov- 
ered internally with a delicate membrane sensible 
to odors.* 
1 The author who has erred most widely in this 
respect, is L. W. Clarke (Magaz. of Nat. Hist. 
September, 1838, or in Frorzep’s neue Notiz. IX. 
p. 4, fig. 12, a-n), who has described at the base of 
the antennae of Carabus nemoralis, Ilig. an 
auditive apparatus, composed of an dAuricula, a 
*[ § 334, note 1.) See also Burmeister (Zeit. 
fiir Zool., Zoot., und Palfiontol. von D’ Alton und 
Burmeister, No. 5, p. 49, Taf. I. fig. 25-29), who 
likewise advocates the auditory function of the 
antennae. But Burmeister and Erichson differ 
Meatus auditorius externus and internus, a. 
Tympanum, and a Labyrinthus, of all of which 
there is not the least trace. The two white convex 
spots at the base of the antennae of Blatta orien 
talis, and which Treviranus (Annal. d. Wetter- 
auisch. Gesellsch. f. d. gesammte Naturkunde, I. 
Hft. 2, p. 169, Taf. V. fig. 1-3) has described gs- 
auditory organs, are, as Burmeister has correctly 
stated (Handb. II. p. 469), only rudimentary acces~ 
sory eyes. Newport (Trans. of the Entom. Soc. 
Il. p. 229) and Goureau (Ann. d.1. Soc. ent. X. p. 
10) think that the antennae serve both as tactile 
and as auditory organs. But this view is inadmis~ 
sible, as Erichson (Wiegmann’s Arch. 1839, II. 
p. 285) has already stated, except in the sense that. 
the antennae, like all solid bodies, may conduct. 
sonorous vibrations of the air ; but, even admittin; 
this view, where js the auditory nerve? for it is 
not at all supposable that the antennal nerve can 
serve at the same time the function of two distinct. 
senses. 
2 This organ has been taken for a soniferous ap- 
paratus by Latreille (Mém. du Mus. VIII. p. 123) 
and Burmeister (Handb. I. p. 512). J. Miller 
(Zur vergleich. Physiol. d. Gesichtssinn. p. 439, and 
Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. XIV. Tab. IX.) was the first. 
who fortunately conceived that with Gryl/us hiero- 
glyphus, this was an auditory organ. He gave, 
however, this interpretation only as hypothetical 5. 
but I have placed it beyond doubt by careful 
researches made on Gomphoceros, Oedipoda, Po- 
disma, Caloptenus and Truwalis (Wiegmann’s 
Arch. 1844, I. p. 56, Taf. I. fig..1~-7). 
somewhat in their statements upon the intimate 
auditory structure of these organs, and, therefore, 
as to the exact mude by which audition occurs. = 
Ep. 
