IAD SENSES OF INSECTS. 
the action of its mandibles; or else that by its motions it 
generates a motion in the atmosphere of its habitation, 
which striking upon the antennee of the Fanus, are by 
them communicated to its sensory. <A similar dispropor- 
tion is observable between the antenne and ovipositor of 
Pimpla Manifestator, before signalized*. Bees, when col- 
lecting honey and pollen, first insert the organs in ques- 
tion into the flowers which they visit; but, as I have more 
than once observed, they merely insert the ¢ip of them. If 
anthers are bursting, or the nectar is exuding, these pro- 
cesses probably are attended by a slight noise, or motion 
of the air within the blossom, which, as in the last case, 
affects, without immediate contact, the exploring organs. 
If the structure of antenne be taken into considera- 
tion, it will furnish us with additional reasons in favour of 
the above hypothesis, with regard to their primary func- 
tion. We shall find that these organs, in most of those 
insects which take their food by suction, are usually less 
gifted with powers of motion, than they are in the man- 
dibulate tribes ; so that in the majority of the Homo- 
pterous Hemiptera and Diptera, as is generally acknow- 
ledged, they cannot be used for touch. Under this view, 
they may be divided into active antennez and passive an- 
tennz: of the former, the most active and versatile are 
those of the Hymenoptera. By means of them, as was 
before observed, their gregarious tribes hold converse, 
and make inquzry—frequently without contact—in the 
pursuit and discharge, if I may so speak, of the various 
duties devolved upon them by ProvipENcE. Amongst 
active -antennee, some are much more complex in their 
» See above, p. 211. E Vor lips 62. 201. 
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