312 The Senses of ihe Lower Animals. . r J ul y> 
O'. 
with a large speaking-trumpet held elose to their hives, and 
with such an exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship 
at the distance of a mile, and still these inserts pursued 
their various employments undisturbed, and without showing 
the least sensibility or resentment. *’ The rustics who, when 
pursuing a stray swarm ol bees, kept up a horrible dis- 
sonance with rattles, cows' horns, trying-pans clashed 
together, and the like, seem to have taken a different view 
of the hearing of bees. 
The question as to the ears of inseCts is not satisfactorily 
settled. It would almost seem that these organs, or what 
stands in their stead, are placed differently in different 
groups. In the two-winged flies (Diptera) the so-called 
poisers or halteres — the small knobs which take the place 
of the posterior wings of other inseCt-orders — have been 
supposed to be the organs of hearing. The Orthoptera are 
said to have ears on their fore-legs, and other inseCts seem 
to possess similar organs in the subcostal vein of the wing. 
It may be asked, how can these points be ascertained ? 
There is certainly, in observing and experimenting on such 
subjects, wide scope for error. We once saw it gravely 
maintained that the antennae of inseCts served as auditory 
organs because when an inseCt is startled by a loud and 
sudden sound a convulsive movement is sometimes observed 
in these members. This, however, proves nothing : a man 
under similar circumstances will often give a sudden jerk 
with his arms ; yet no one will maintain, on that account, 
that we hear with our hands. To recognise the organs of 
sensation in the vertebrate animals is generally easy, because 
they occupy positions answering to those which they hold 
in our own system. But among Invertebrates the case is 
different : organs which in mammals, birds, &c., are con- 
centrated in the head or on the trunk, may there appear on 
the limbs. If then we find, e.g. } on the wing or the leg of 
an inseCt some apparatus specially supplied with nerves, 
and yet obviously adapted neither for locomotive, prehensile, 
vocal, secretive, or reproductive functions, &c., we arrive, 
by a process of exhaustion, at the inference that it is most 
probably an organ of sensation. Concerning the eyes there 
can be fortunately no doubt. The senses of smell and taste 
we may reasonably expeCt to be in close proximity to the 
mouth. So that a highly specialised organisation found on 
the wing or leg, as above mentioned, may with great proba- 
bility be pronounced either to be an ear or the seat of some 
sense totally unknown. If, on experiment, the removal of 
such organ is found to bring with it the incapacity to 
