4968 Entomological Society. 



side is the longest; the other three are of different length, are united at their base, 

 and are seated on the summit of a stout triarticulate footstalk. These three antennae are 

 invariably called 'branches' by the closet-naturalist; but the field-naturalist and the 

 physiologist must of necessity call them ' antennae ;' first, because not apprised of the con- 

 ventional usage respecting them, and, secondly, because, reasoning on the fact that the 

 branches of the antennae in true insects are never articulated, they do not expect to find 

 multiarticulate branches in the antennae of any animal. It may be very easy to argue 

 that the two longest of these many-jointed threads ought to be ears, and that the other 

 six ought to be noses, or vice versa, but seeing how precisely they agree in structure, — 

 seeing that the microscope fails to detect a difference, — and seeing, moreover, as we shall 

 see, that there is no perceptible discrepancy in the mode in which the living animal may 

 be said to handle these weapons of perception, it is very difficult to convince the matter- 

 of-fact mind of a naturalist that the argument is conclusive or the hypothesis established. 

 Thanks to Mr.Warington, the prawn is now as easily kept in confinement as the rabbit 

 or the guinea-pig, and we have every opportunity of observing how he behaves himself 

 both under congenial and adverse circumstances: under every condition the antennae 

 are constantly in action ; always also acting in concert, as by a common impulse for a 

 common object. Mr. Warington, in his admirable account of the prawn, in a late 

 number of the 'Zoologist,' says that he considers the sense of smell as residing most 

 strongly in the antennae ; and he relates, far better than I can, the wonderfully 

 beautiful manner in which the prawn appears to hunt its food by scent. The following 

 experiment I have often tried, and invariably with the same result: — Fix on the point 

 of the usual feeding-fork a small piece of meat; plunge it in the sea-water near 

 the prawn, but not near enough to touch or disturb him ; then draw it through the 

 water to the most distant part of the vessel, bring it to the surface, disengage it from 

 the fork, and let it fall gently to the bottom. In a very few seconds the prawn becomes 

 aware of the operation ; he knows that food is or has been in his vicinity ; he stands 

 ^rect on his legs; he lashes the water with his antennae, and, rising from the make- 

 believe rock whereon he was previously resting, hovers in mid-water, still waving his 

 hair-like antennae until one of them has bisected the line of transit of his food: this 

 line ascertained he follows it without hesitation ; ascends to the surface ; plunges to 

 the bottom ; seizes the meat with his claws and conveys it to his mouth : during the 

 entire operation, seldom prolonged beyond a minute, the motion of all the antennae is 

 constant and indescribably beautiful; and it would require a far keener eye, a far 

 more vivid imagination than mine, to detect or to suppose an auditory faculty exercised 

 by some of them and an olfactory one by others. A second and even a third prawn 

 will sometimes follow the trail after the first has passed, and I have seen three at once 

 in active pursuit, like fox-hounds running with the scent breast-high. It is difficult 

 in such a case as this to escape the conviction that the antennae ascertain the course 

 to be taken : to see the creature would remove the doubts of the most sceptical on this 

 point; at first all the antennae are porrected, but when the trail is once struck, and the 

 pace of the hunter consequently improved, pair after pair bend back, with the rapidity 

 of the motion. It is equally difficult to imagine that the passage of the meat through 

 the water has left a sound : savour or odour are probable, sound certainly improbable. 

 Thus as, in the first instance, we are willing to believe that the antennae guide the 

 creature to its food, so, in the second place, we are willing to conclude that the senses 

 of touch and smell are those most likely to be called into actiou by a substance totally 

 incapable of producing sound." 



