f life. We must admit, in fact, the
correlation and interdependence of morphology, physiology, and
psychology in the evolution of this creature from its ancestral form to
its present status.

The primitive organ of audition as it is to be observed in creatures of
simple, comparatively speaking, organization is as simple as is the
anatomy of the animals in which it is found. Commonly, it is a hollow
hair, which is connected by a minute nerve-filament with the sensorium.
Sound vibrations set the hair to vibrating, which in turn conveys the
vibrations to the nerve-filament, and so on to the auditory centre.
Sometimes the hair is not hollow; in this case, the root of the hair is
intimately associated with nerve-filaments which take up vibrations.

It is highly probable that the majority of the lower animals, especially
those which are sound-producers, can hear just as we hear. It is also
highly probable that the so-called deaf animals can hear, just as we
hear when we have either been born deaf, or through disease have lost
the power of hearing--by _feeling_ the sound waves.

Owing to our own lack of acuteness, all of the problems involved in this
question of audition in the lower animals will, probably, never be
definitely settled; yet, reasoning by analogy, we can, approximately,
solve some of them.

By far the larger number of entomologists locate the auditory organs of
insects in their antennae. I have only to mention the names of such men
as Kirby, Spence, Burmeister, Hicks, Wolff, Newport, Oken, Strauss,
Durkheim, and Carus, who advance this opinion, to show what a formidable
array of talent maintains it. Yet my observations lead me to believe
otherwise, though these authorities are in part correct. As far as
Lepidoptera are concerned, and certain of Hemiptera, they are right--the
antennae in these creatures are the seat of the organs of audition. But
in Orthoptera, in most of Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera, and in
certain bugs (Hemiptera), they are located elsewhere. The habit that
almost all insects have of retracting their antennae when alarmed by
noise, or otherwise, has done much to advance and strengthen the opinion
that these appendages are the seat of insect ears; yet I am confident
that in nine cases out of ten the antennae are retracted through fear of
injury to them, and not through any impression made on them by sound.
The antennae are the most exposed and least protected of any of the
appendages