HOW ANTS COMMUNICATE 



whole group. One of the males was shut up in a cage 

 in the garden, and a female captive was set at liberty 

 near by. Soon the male put his mandolin into play, 

 whereat Madame Gry 11 us flew to his side. " Barkis was 

 woolin' -and Peggotty, too ! Certainly here was a case 



c - c CU ( :.( ..( ( (( f 



Fig. 64 STRIDULATING ORGANS OF LOCUST AND CRICKET 



RED-LEGGED LOCUST (MELANOPLUS FEMUR-RUBRUM) 



Below it is shown a greatly enlarged section of the file on wing-cover of male cricket, against 

 which the scraper on opposite wing-cover is rubbed to produce its call 



of intelligent communication between two lovers, and 

 that by means of sound, and not by scent alone. And 

 it may be that for the most part this form of insect lan- 

 guage is amative. So, doubtless, much of human speech 

 was evolved around sexual and parental loves. 



But Brunelli was preceded at least eight centuries in 

 discovering that caged grasshoppers will utter their 

 stridulant notes. According to the late Prof. Lafcadio 

 Hearn, 1 the Japanese, as long ago as the tenth century, 

 were addicted to their interesting habit of confining 

 insects in cages for the sake of their music. To-day the 

 sale of these insects and the dainty cages 2 in which they 

 are kept is a large and lucrative business in Tokio and 



1 Exotics and Retrospectives, pp. 39-79. 



2 The writer is indebted for the two ingenious specimens here 

 figured to Mr, Lucien Sharpe. 



141 



