PACKARD.] IXSECTS OF THE PLA^T HOUSE. 
101 
of bis body in the direction of the sound. Experiments 
under the microscope show that the mosquito can thus detect 
to within five degrees the position of the sonorous centre. 
To render assurance doubly sure, Prof. Mayer, having found 
two fibrils of the antennae of a mosquito which vibrated pow¬ 
erfully to two different notes, measured these fibrils very 
accurately under the microscope. He then constructed some 
fibrils out of pine wood, which, though two or three feet 
long and of the thickness of small picture-cord, had exactly 
the same proportion of length to thickness as the fibrils of 
the antennae of the mosquito. He found that these slender 
pine rods or fibrils had the same ratio of vibration to each 
other as the fibrils of the mosquito.” 
Here a question arises. The song of the mosquito is un¬ 
doubtedly a sexual call. Does the male detect the presence 
fig. 71 . 
of its female charmer by the‘different tones of her voice? 
Certainly the ears of the male with its feathered antennae 
are far more acute than those of the opposite sex, the an¬ 
tennae- in her case mostly wanting those long vibratile hairs 
that give to him his acuteness of hearing. In this case 
5 
