2Q9 
1878.] The Senses of the Lower Animals. 
tongue in many reptiles, the feet (sometimes aided by the 
antennae) in articulate animals — all exercise this function. 
With the exception of a doubtful case in bats, to which we 
shall have to refer below, we doubt if any of the Vertebrates 
possess the sense of touch in as high a degree of perfection 
as does man. 
Reviewing the faCts already adduced, we are surely war- 
ranted in concluding that, even as regards those animals 
which possess organs of sense clearly homologous with our 
own, and exercising demonstrably the same function, the 
sense-perceptions are not necessarily the same as our own, 
the probability being that— so far at least as sight, smell, 
and hearing are concerned — we are surpassed by not a few 
of our humbler fellow-tenants of the globe. They may, or 
rather they actually do, see where to us there is mere dark- 
ness or a void, hear where we find utter silence, smell what 
to us is inodorous, and distinguish grades and modifications 
where our senses pronounce there to be no difference. In 
faCt, just as our bodily nakedness, slowness, feebleness, and 
lack of weapons require to be supplemented by clothing, 
vehicles, arms, and machinery, so our dull senses demand 
the aid of the telescope, the microscope, the spectroscope, 
and other the like aids. 
But we have still to consider those beings whose organs 
of sensation are not homologous with our own, and exercise 
function as yet imperfectly ascertained. Above all, we have 
to keep in view the possibility that certain animals may 
enjoy senses whose nature is to us altogether unknown. To 
deny, a priori, the existence of such senses is as if we were 
to assert that because we possess no poison-fangs, therefore 
the bite of the cobra is harmless, — or that because we do 
not secrete silk, the spider and the caterpillar are unable to 
spin. It is, in short, that ever-besetting error “ Man the 
measure of all things.” 
Taking up first the latter question, we will call attention 
to the wonderful dexterity with which a bat will flit about 
in a locality full of prominent or pendent objects, without 
coming in collision with any. It is sight, you say ? But 
an experiment has been tried which will, we fear, be pro- 
nounced a case of “ violationism.” A bat has been deprived 
of sight, and turned loose in a room where a number of 
rods, strings, and other objects were suspended from the 
ceiling ; but it avoided these obstacles just as well as if still 
possessed of its eyes. Feeling or touch ? We know that 
men perfectly blind, when moving slowly along, can judge 
whether they are approaching an objeCt, such as a walk 
