310 The Senses of the Lower Animals. [July? 
folded leaves, or in fruits, in the stems of vegetables, or in 
masses of earth ? The sense of smell seems by far the 
most likely guide ; and if we watch a female ichneumon on 
the search for larvae in which to deposit her eggs, and note 
the rapid and systematic play of her long flexible antennae 
over the surface of the objects she is examining, we cannot 
help comparing her movements to those of a hound searching 
for the trail of a fox or a deer. If we admit that the antennae 
are the olfactory organs all becomes intelligible. 
Adtual observation, as far as it has been carried, testifies 
in the same diredtion. We have often offered fruit or flowers 
to captive rose-beetles, and have always found that their 
first adtion was to stretch out the antennae and expand the 
leaflets of their terminal clubs. Dung-beetles adt precisely 
in the same manner if suddenly presented with a piece of 
excrement. Indeed all insedts whose antennae are large 
and conspicuous enough to be conveniently observed adt as 
if these organs played a most prominent part in the recog- 
nition of food placed in their way. That they may be, at 
the same time, organs of touch is perfedtly possible. The 
proboscis of the elephant, the snout of the swine, &c., fulfil 
this double fundlion. 
Provisionally, then, we think it may be admitted that the 
antennae are the organs of smell. But till we are able to 
show some correlation between the form of these organs in 
each group and its peculiar habits and requirements, or its 
general strudture, our knowledge must be confessed to be 
exceedingly imperfedt. We are perfedtly aware of Dr. Wolf’s 
supposed discovery of an organ of scent in insedts, which is 
merely a “ specially differentiated portion of the membrane” 
which extends from the labrum inwards. We admit that 
the part examined by this naturalist is an organ of sensation. 
But we do not see that even the attempt has been made to 
trace any connedtion between its development and the 
varying degrees of olfadtory power. 
Though second in moment among the senses in man, the 
faculty of hearing must, among invertebrate animals, receive 
a lower position in accordance with the part which it plays 
in their economy. On this subjedt, however, we are almost 
daily receiving new and often startling revelations. Natu- 
ralists have long known that some insedts possessed the 
power of producing sounds at pleasure, and have very justi- 
fiably inferred that such species cannot be devoid of the 
sense of hearing. The responsive chirp of the cricket, the 
cicada, and the grasshopper ; the peculiar note uttered by 
the queen bee, and which produces such an effedt upon her 
