180 
ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY 
Swammerdam and Cuvier the recurrent nerve . The 
double nervous web preponderates in the Orthoptera, 
and especially in Loeusta and Gryllus. 
The remarkable and characteristic attribute of this 
system is, that it is in no degree influenced by the 
changes which the ventral system undergoes in the 
different stages of metamorphosis. It is quite ns 
fully developed in the young larva as in the perfect 
insect and vice versa. It may be thence naturally 
inferred that its functional uses are required at the 
earliest stage of life ; and this in reality is the case, 
for it is destined to preside over the functions of 
what has been called vegetative life, which reach 
their highest pitch of activity in lame. 
As the nerves constitute the fundamental organs 
of all sensation, this is the proper place to speak of 
the senses , the avenues through which the properties 
of external objects are conveyed to them. Judging 
partly from their structure, and partly from the 
actions that follow certain impressions received from 
without, we are inevitably led to infer, that insects 
possess at least all the senses which exist in the higher 
animals, some of them even in a greater state of per- 
fection. Nay, it is by no means improbable that 
additional ones have been assigned them, to w T hich 
we have nothing analogous in our own system, and 
of which, therefore, we cannot form any accurate 
conception. It is even a matter of doubt what 
organs are to be regarded as the seat of certain senses, 
the existence of which we are scarcely authorised to 
call in question. 
