PDF - Wallace Online

NATURAL SELECTIONledge of the internal constitution of bodies analogous to thatwhich we obtain by the spectroscope and that;their visualorgans do possess some powers which ours do not, is indicatedby the extraordinary crystalline rods radiating from the opticganglion to the facets of the compound eye, which rods varyin form and thickness in different parts of their length, andpossess distinctive characters in each group of insects. Thiscomplex apparatus, so different from anything in the eyes ofvertebrates, may subserve some function quite inconceivableby us, as well as that which we know as vision. There isreason to believe that insects appreciate sounds of extremedelicacy, and it is supposed that certain minute organs, plentifullysupplied with nerves, and situated in the subcostal veinof the wing in most insects, are the organs of hearing. Butbesides these, the Orthoptera (such as grasshoppers, etc.) havewhat are supposed to be ears on their fore legs, and Mr.Lowne believes that the little stalked balls, which are thesole remnants of the hind wings in flies, are also organs ofhearing or of some analogous sense. In flies, too, the thirdjoint of the antennae contains thousands of nerve-fibres, whichterminate in small open cells, and this Mr. Lowne believes tobe the organ of smell, or of some other, perhaps new, sense.It is quite evident, therefore, that insects may possess senseswhich give them a knowledge of that which we can neverperceive, and enable them to perform acts which to us areincomprehensible. In the midst of this complete ignoranceof their faculties and inner nature, is it wise for us to judgeso boldly of their powers by a comparison with our own ?How can we pretend to fathom the profound mystery of theirmental nature, and decide what, and how much, they canperceive or remember, reason or reflect ! To leap at onebound from our own consciousness to that of an insect's is asunreasonable and absurd as if,with a pretty good knowledgeof the multiplication table, we were to go straight to thestudy of the calculus of functions, or as if our comparativeanatomists should pass from the study of man's bony structureto that of the fish, and, without any knowledge of thenumerous intermediate forms, were to attempt to determinethe homologies between these distant types of vertebrata.In such a case would not error be inevitable, and would not