ve had of the faculty of sight, had all
the world been born blind.

For example; if you breed from the chrysalis a female Kentish Glory Moth,
and then immediately take her--in a closed box, mind--out into her native
woods, within a short space of time an actual crowd of male "Glories" come
and fasten upon, or hover over, the prison-house of the coveted maiden.
Without this magic attraction, you might walk in these same woods for a
whole day and not see a single specimen, the Kentish Glory being generally
reputed a very rare moth; while as many as some 120 males have been thus
decoyed to their capture in a few hours, by the charms of a couple of lady
"Glories," shut up in a box.

[Illustration: V.]

{29}

Now, which of our five senses, I would ask--even if developed into
extraordinary acuteness in the insect--would account for such an exhibition
of clairvoyance as this?

May not, then, this undiscovered sense, whatever may be its nature, reside
in the antennae? for it is a remarkable fact, that the very moths, such as
the Eggers, the Emperor, the Kentish Glory, &c., which display the
above-mentioned phenomenon most signally, have the _antennae in the males_
amplified with numerous spreading branches, so as to present an unusually
large sensitive surface. This seems to point to some connexion between
those organs and the faculty of discovering the presence, and even the
condition, of one of their own race, with more, perhaps, than a mile of
distance, and the sides of a wooden box, intervening between themselves and
their object.

Whilst writing this, the current number of the "Entomologist's Weekly
Intelligencer" has arrived, and I there read that Dr. Clemmens, an American
naturalist, has been lately experimenting on the antennae of some large
American moths, for the purpose of gaining some information as to their
function. The article, though very interesting, is too long for quotation
here; but it appears that with the moths in question, a deprivation of the
whole, or even part of the antennae, interferes with, or entirely
annihilates the power {30} of flight, so that the creature when thus shorn,
but not otherwise injured, if thrown into the air seems to have no idea of
using his wings properly, but with a purposeless flutter tumbles headlong
to the earth. Still this merely goes to prove that the antennae are the
instruments of some important sense, one of whose uses is to guide the
creature's flight; but as man