THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 123 



pouches, but instead of being limited to two, these poviches 

 are many thousands in number. Here the infinitely little 

 surpasses the infinitely great; the insect outstrips the 

 elephant. 



There must necessarily be organs of hearing in insects, 

 because they are attracted together by certain sounds, and 

 even possess a very varied set of instruments wherewith 

 to produce them. But we do not yet knoAv where their 

 auditory apparatus is.^ 



One very extraordinary fact is, that these animals only 

 seem to hear sounds which are serviceable to them, whilst 

 others, whatever be their intensity, do not affect them in 

 any way. The queen-bee, by means of a scarcely per- 

 ceptible hum, sets all her people in movement, and com- 

 pels an army of combatants to follow her; but if, on the 

 contrary, fire-arms be discharged quite close to a colony 

 of Hymenoptera, not one of them stirs ; it seems as if the 

 sound was not noticed by them. 



The horse has only one stomach, the insect has often 

 three; in the former it only occupies a somewhat limited 

 portion of the body, in the other it sometimes entirely 

 invades it — the animal resembles a walking digestive sack. 

 The ravenous activity of many Orthoptera is even aided 

 by great teeth, placed in the interior of the stomach, which 

 act like a second mouth, and complete the crushing of any- 

 thing that has escaped the action of the jaws. 



^ Latreille seems to think that tlie auditory organ of insects maj' ha seated at 

 the base of the antenna, because, in certain Orthoptera, there ai-e at this spot 

 traces of the membranes of the t3'mpanum, as is observed in some crustaceans. 



In order to omit none of tlie recent conquests of science, it behoves us also to 

 mention that Cuvier and Dumeril place the seat of smell at the orifice of a kind 

 of small openings, like button-holes, called stigmata, Ijjr wliich the air enters the 

 trachea. And, in fact, there is here a manifest analogy with the position of the 

 nose, which, in the large anjmals, is placed at the entrance to the respiratory 

 apparatus. 



