Q44 SENSES OF INSECTS. 
cisely upon this question, and in general so extremely simi- 
lar to what is here advanced, that I must copy it for your 
consideration. “Since there is nothing in the constitution 
of the atmosphere,” says he, “ to prevent vibrations much 
more frequent than any of which we are conscious, we may 
imagine that animals like the Gryll7, whose powers ap- 
pear to commence nearly where ours terminate, may have 
the faculty of hearing still sharper sounds, which at pre- 
sent we do not know to exist; and that there may be 
other insects, hearing nothing in common with us, but 
endued with a power of exciting, and a sense that per- 
ceives, vibrations indeed of the same nature as those 
which constitute our ordinary sounds, but so remote, that 
the animals who perceive them may be said ¢o possess 
another sense, agreeing with our own solely in the medium 
by which it is excited, and possibly wholly unaffected by 
these slower vibrations of which we are sensible?.” That 
insects, however, hear nothing in common with us, is 
contrary to fact; at least with respect to numbers of them. 
They hear our sounds, and we theirs; but their hearing 
or analogous sense is much nicer than ours, collecting 
the slightest vibratiuncle imparted by other insects, &ce. 
to the air. In inquiring how this is done, it may be asked 
—How know we that every joint of some antenne is not 
an acoustic organ, in a certain sense distinct from the 
rest? We see that the eyes of insects are usually com- 
pound, and consist of numerous distinct lenses 3—why 
may not their external ears or their analogues be also 
multiplied, so as to enable them with more certainty to 
collect those fine vibrations that we know reach their 
4 Philos. Trans. 1820, 314. 
