236 



INSECT LIFE. 



be true of the sounds produced by bees. The care- 

 ful student of the honey-bee soon learns a language 

 which is as intelligible to him as spoken words. The 

 contented hum of the worker gathering pollen and 

 nectar is very different from the savage buzz of the 

 s:ime individual when threatening an intruder who is 

 disturbing the hive. So also is the sound produced 

 by a queenless colony very different from that pro- 

 duced by one that has not this misfortune. The 

 sound produced by bees emerging from any number 

 of hives when merely the ordinary labor is going on 

 would not be mistaken for the tumult caused by a 

 single swarm leaving its hive for a new home. 



Still, perhaps the only meaning of these various 

 sounds is that the bees move in a different way when 

 influenced by different emotions, and that the produc- 

 tion of a peculiar sound is merely incidental and is 

 not the object of the peculiar motion. 



There are insects, however, in which distinct 

 musical organs are developed, and that make move- 

 ments that have for their sole object the production 

 of sound. It is to these singers that we will turn our 

 attention. 



Chief among them are the cicadas, locusts, grass- 

 hoppers, and crickets. In all of these it is only the 

 males that sing, these insects resembling the song- 

 birds in this respect. We will study here only the 

 musical organs of Orthoptera. 



Locusts produce sounds in two ways : First, cer- 

 tain species rub the inner surface of the hind femora, 

 upon which there is a row of minute spines, against 

 the outer surface of the fore wings. In this case each 

 fore wing serves as a fiddle and each hind leg as a fid- 



