These conjectures have been verified by experiment. Various insects were immediately affected on the expo sure of their antenna, by means of the apparatus above described, to heated air and humidity. Beetles fled from heated air, and butterflies from humidity. The first of these roams at large through the fields, the lat ter chiefly inhabits a subterraneous abode, Notwithstanding the attenna may be adapted for this purpose in some insects, they are not so in all. To those living constantly under cover, it would be of little, use ; therefore, the principal sense which resides in the antenna is feeling. Those, however, of flies, and other diptera, do not seem well calculated for the sense of touch. Perhaps, from the structure of the head, which is easily injured, they are rather an organ for its defence.
Lehmann, whose reasoning we have just related, concludes on the whole, that, as the antenna are not the organs of either smell, hearing, or taste, their prin cipal, though not sole office, is feeling. But they are also endowed with an unknown sense, which he deno minates arroscensin ; and conjectures, that, in certain species, they may contribute to the defence of the head.
In ascertaining the physiological properties of the various parts of animals, we shall probably find the most conspicuous illustrations among those dwelling in so ciety, which may be said to labour for one common aid, and seem mutually dependent on each other. Bees, wasps, and ants, all display a wonderful degree of in stinct, we may almost say anticipation, from whatever source it may arise, whether some pleasurable sensation to themselves, or following an irresistible course decreed by nature. Nor can we see how such instincts could be dispensed with, considering that ten or twenty thou sand of these creatures may sometimes exist together, forming a single great family.
Some peculiar virtue, or quality, seems to reside in the antenna of the queen bee, different from what we have already alluded to in other insects. The ingenious Francis Huber, well known for his acute observations on this industrious animal, has made several most inte resting experiments on the subject. Amputating one of the antenna of a queen, he found was not attended with any perceptible effect. We are aware indeed, that insects can live very well without them, and that death does not ensue on cutting both away. Privation of both antenna, however, produced very singular consequences. Mr Huber cut them from a queen, whose fecundation had been retarded, so that she laid none but the eggs of males. From that moment a marked alteration in her conduct was seen ; she traversed the combs with ex traordinary rapidity ; scarcely had the workers time to Pt cede before her ; and, instead of the care which a perfect queen displays in depositing her eggs in those places alone suitable for their exclusion, she dropped them at random, without selecting proper cells. She retired to the most solitary parts of the hive, seeming to avoid the bees, and long remained motionless. Seve ral workers, however, followed her there, and treated her with the most evident respect. She seldom required honey from them ; but when that was the case, she di rected her trunk with a kind of uncertain feeling, some times on the head, and sometimes on the limbs of the workers, and if she did reach their mouths, it was by chance. Queens leave their hive but once in their whole lives, which is for the purpose of obtaining impregna tion ; they remain voluntary prisoners ever afterwards, unless in leading out a swarm. This queen, however, seemed eager to escape; she rushed towards the open ing of the hive, but finding it too small for her exit, she returned after fruitless exertion. Notwithstanding the
symptoms of delirium, by which she was agitated, the workers never ceased to pay her the same attention, as they invariably do to their queens, though she received it with indifference.
Apprehensive that the queen's instinct might be im paired, from her organization suffering by retarded fe cundation, M. Huber deprived another female of the antenna, and introduced her into the hive. She was quite in the natural state, and had already proved of great fertility ; but now she exhibited exactly the same symptoms of agitation and delirium that the other had done. Perfect queens, possessing all their organs, tes tify the most violent animosity against each other; they fight repeatedly; the workers seem to incite them to combat, until one at length falls, while the other sur vives, to preserve and perpetuate the colony. Muti lated of the antenna, however, they testify no recipro cal aversion; in traversing the hive, they meet without_ sheaving the smallest indications of resentment. If a perfect stranger queen is introduced, either when one already exists in a hive, or within a few hours after she is lost, that stranger is immediately surrounded, and so closely hemmed in by the bees, that she sometimes dies. But here the mutilated stranger queen was quite well received ; her arrival created no discontents in the hive, and the workers paid the same homage to her as to their own. " Was it," asks M. Huber, " because, after losing the antenna, these queens no longer retain ed any characteristic, which distinguished the one from the other ? I am the more inclined to adopt this con jecture, from the bad reception experienced by a third perfect queen, introduced into the same hive. The bees seized her, bit her, and confined her so close, that she could hardly breathe or move. Therefore, if they treat two females deprived of the antenna equally well in the same hive, it is probably because they observe the same sensation from those two females, and want the means of distinguishing them from each other." Bees never abandon their queen; her presence seems almost indispensible to their existence ; and, as we have before observed, the queen never forsakes her hive. If she does so to found a new colony, the bees accompany her in her flight. Here, as both the muti lated queens constantly endeavoured to escape, the first and third were removed, and the entrance of the hive enlarged ; the fertile mutilated one therefore left it, but none of the workers followed her; she was allowed to depart alone. The wise provisions of nature are amply illustrated by these facts. It is fortunate that a queen, deprived of the antenna, is thus impelled to leave the hive. While she remains, the bees incessantly attend her, and never think of procuring another. The secret which the workers possess, of converting a common worm into one, which will become a queen, must be exercised within the first three days of its existence ; therefore, if the queen remained, this limited term would elapse. Neither can her presence contribute to preserve the hive; for mutilation of the antenna de prives her of the power of discriminating the different kind of cells, adapted to receive the various species of eggs which she lays. M. Huber considers the antenna as the organs of touch or smell, though he declines af firming which of these senses reside in them; and thinks it possible, that they may be so organized, as to fulfil both functions at once.