26 
ELEMENTS OS ENTOMOLOGT. 
From Mr. Marsham’s account it appears that these insects do not 
adopt any hole indiscriminately as a situation for their eggs; for in 
many instances he saw them thrust their antenna*, into holes and cre- 
vices from which they almost immediately withdrew them, and pro- 
ceeded in search of others. As the whole of the ichneumons deposit 
their eggs in the body of some other creature as a nidus, it appears 
probable that in these instances they found the holes empty, and that 
they went on in search of those in which the young of the Apis m ax'dr 
Visa were deposited. 
From these remarks may wc not infer that the antenna may be the 
organs of smelling? for the antennae of the Ichneumon ManifhAutor 
(PI. 8. fig. 4.) are not so long as the tube from Which the eggs are ex- 
cluded, and consequently could not have touched the animal in which 
it afterwards deposited its eggs. In many species of Lcpidoplem the 
females arc destitute of wings : the males in general have pectinated 
antenna;, and are so extremely eager after the female, that they have 
been known to enter the pocket of an entomologist who had one se- 
cured in a box. 
These experiments arc in some measure corroborated by the ob- 
servations of Latrcillo, who supposes the anten’.ne to be the olfactory 
organs. In the twelfth number of the Edinburgh Review is a critique 
(on tlie Nouveau Diethmnairc d'Histoire NatureUe, 24 tom. live. Paris, 
1803-4.) : the following extract i here insert, hoping it will produce a 
further inquiry. 
“ That insects posses? the faculty of smelling is clearly demonstrated. 
It is the most perfect of all their senses. Beetles, of various sorts. Ni- 
tidulte, the different species of Dermcstes, Sylph#, Flies, fyc., perceive, at a 
very considerable distance, the smell of ordure and dead bodies, and 
resort in swarms to the situations in which they occur, either for the 
purpose of procuring food or depositing their eggs. The blue flesh- 
fly, deceived by the cadaverous odour of a species of Arum, alights on 
its flower. Rut though we can thus easily prove the presence of the 
sense of smell among insects, it is much more difficult to discover the 
seat of that particular sense. Several naturalists have supposed that 
it resides in the antenna 1 .. Dumcril, in a dissertation published in 
179 0, attempts to provc.that it must he situated about the entrance of 
the stigmata or respiratory organs, as Baster had previously supposed. 
His arguments, however, did not induce Latreille to relinquish the for- 
mer opinion, which places it in the antenna:. The following arc the 
reasons which he assigns for his belief. 
“ 1. The exercise of smell consists only in the action of air, impreg- 
nated with odoriferous particles, on the nervous or olfactory mem- 
brane, which transmits the sensation. 
“ If insects be endowed with an organ furnished with similar nerves, 
and with which air, charged with odoriferous particles, conies in con- 
