The Insect Folk

by Margaret Warner Morley

You know what an ear is. It is something to hear with. The hearing part of our own ears is way inside, out of sight.

The outer part of the ear, that we can take hold of, is only a sort of funnel to gather up the sound, and we could still hear if this part of our ears were cut off.

Way back inside the ear is a little curtain, or eardrum, made of a thin membrane.

When sounds enter the ear they cause the eardrum to tremble or vibrate, and this excites the nerve of hearing that is behind the eardrum.

Now some grasshoppers have a little flat membrane on the tibia of each front leg. It is an eardrum. Behind it is the nerve of hearing. When sounds strike the eardrum it vibrates and excites the nerve of hearing.

So you see the insects have ears, though they have no funnel-like outsides to them.

So, after all, there isn't so very much difference between the way the grasshoppers hear, and the way we hear, although they do hear with their legs.

Yes, Ned, it is about the same thing when they hear with sensitive spots on their antennæ.

The sounds strike the sensitive spots, which are tiny eardrums, and cause the nerves that come to them to hear.