Insects. 1525 



of Orthosia macilenta (far from the most sluggish of the Noctuae) with a No. 8 needle, 

 but without removing it from its place, and have kept my eye on it for ten minutes by 

 my watch ; and it has not yet roused itself, nor is there the slightest appearance of its 

 doing so ; and I verily believe it would not move until the evening. Of the anatomy 

 of insects I confess myself ignorant, neither do I maintain " that insects do not feel at 

 all," because I have no means of proving it; but I contend that this sensation is not 

 produced by their being impaled. Mr. Wollaston, I suppose, will allow that some 

 Noctuae when transfixed will remain motionless (if only for two minutes), others I ad- 

 mit are sooner roused, while others are with difficulty transfixed at all ; the same is 

 true of the Geometra as far as my observations have gone. Taking, therefore, (as Mr. 

 Wollaston would) the time that elapsed before the insects are roused to measure the 

 degree of slowness with which they feel, we shall have insects possessing every possible 

 degree of sensibility, from those that require hours to feel that they are transfixed, to 

 those which feel it instantaneously, or at all events, that the slumbers of some insects 

 are prodigiously more sound than those of others ; but can any thing be adduced to 

 maintain either position? My opinion is that insects are roused, and therefore their 

 struggles, occasioned chiefly by the change of position caused by the pressure which it 

 is necessary to exert in impaling them (especially with such pins as are not unfrequently 

 used for the purpose) ; and this change of position will be greater or less, according as 

 the insect, when in repose, sits with its body more or less raised from the substance on 

 which it rests. If you succeed (which is doubtful) in piercing one which rests with its 

 body much raised, the pressure brings the body in contact with the substance, and 

 thus causes an uneasy position, and the insect will struggle, but if the body be raised 

 a little on the pin, the insect will generally compose itself as at first. Some Noctuae 

 which would not move when impaled, if not taken from their place, will, on such re- 

 moval, become roused; but when the pin is again inserted in any substance, they will 

 at once recompose themselves : if then the pin occasion the struggles, we shall have 

 the effect removed, while the cause remains. Again, an impaled insect (if a Noctua) 

 will rest during the day and struggle at night, and therefore, if pain causes the strug- 

 gles, the pain must be intermittent. Impale an insect and wait until it is roused, and 

 its struggles commence and then remove the pin, and its struggles will cease; this I 

 think must proceed, either from the pin-wound causing no pain, or else from the insect 

 finding itself at liberty — I shall be content with either conclusion. These may be 

 called " miserable facts," but it strikes me they are quite as conclusive as the following 

 argument : — Insects contain neurine, Mr. Wollaston cannot separate feeling from neu- 

 rine — ergo, insects feel ; and consequently have a sense of pain. I shall admit the 

 conclusion, when Mr. Wollaston has supplied the readers of the ' Zoologist ' with a 

 few facts, however miserable, to show that feeling and neurine in insects are insepara- 

 ble ; but until he does this, he will, I think, be liable to the charge of building on 

 " probabilities and theories," which he himself very wisely condemns. Having written 

 thus much on the struggling of Lepidoptera, it is not my intention to recur to a sub- 

 ject, the discussion of which is anything but agreeable. — William Turner ; Uppingham, 

 August 26th, 1846. 



Feeling of Insects. — I wish to state a few facts on this subject. Cossus ligniperda 

 and Cerura vinula : I have pinned more than fifty, perhaps more than a hundred, of 

 both these insects, on the palings of the Deptford Kopeground, which for some years I 

 daily used to examine : I never saw any demonstration that I could attribute to pain : 

 at evening I have observed most pinned specimens commence vibrating their wings, 



