The rest of the insects are, in general, much like the ants. They have their feelers or antennae, growing out in front of the head, with which they both feel and smell. Most of them seem to taste their food in their mouths. Nearly all have eyes.

As for ears, a good many insects, apparently, hear as the ants do, without any regular ears, and just by feeling the shake of what they happen to stand on. At least, nothing is known about their having any regular ears; though it is quite possible that some of them hear through their wings. Certainly, a tight hard wing, like a house fly’s, when one wasn’t using it for flying, ought to make a very decent sort of ear, one would think.

Grasshoppers and the like have proper ears. Though instead of being where we have ours, on the sides of our heads, Grasshopper Gray carries his ears on his hind legs, on the side of his great jumping thighs; while the ear itself, instead of looking like a human ear, is like a tiny drum—a tight thin head with a hollow underneath. Some other insects have their ears on the side of their bodies, about the middle. You can see these things for yourselves; they are not hard to find.

[ Ear of a mole cricket on the front leg. ]

Some of the jelly-fishes have ears, not at all good ones, but still ears. Some also have eyes, not so good even as the ears, and not good for much anyway. But the same kind of jelly-fish doesn’t have both ears and eyes; whichever he gets, he goes without the other, having apparently not sense enough to manage both. As for the sea-cucumbers, they sometimes have more than fifty ears apiece, none of them good for much.

Most all of these simpler sorts of ear are much like tiny rattles. There is a hollow ball lined with nerves. Inside the ball is a small hard ear-stone, or a number of smaller grains of ear-sand. When a sound comes along, (for a sound is nothing but jar), it shakes the rattle, so that the little stone inside bangs against the nerves. Then the animal hears. In the cod fish these ear-stones are unusually large, as large as the end of one’s thumb; children sometimes call them lucky-bones, and use them for playings. We also have these little rattles, two in each ear, with ear-sand. But these, which are all there is to the ears of lowly creatures, are only a small part of our hearing machinery.

[ Back of the frog’s eyes are the ear drums. ]

You will find the ears of lobsters and crayfish, which are little fresh water lobsters, just at the point where the smaller feelers, which are double at the end, join the body. These, too, are merely ordinary ear-rattles; you can make out the opening on the upper side of the feeler. Of course, you know the ears of the frog—the big spots on the side of the head, back of the eyes. These spots are the drums of the ears; the real ear, much like our own, is inside. We have such a drum, only it is at the inner end of the hole into the ear, where it is much safer than it would be outside.