528 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



cry of which he compares to the chirping of a grasshopper.^ Mutilla 

 europaa, a hymenopterous insect, makes a sibilant chirping, as I once 

 observed at Soiithwold, where it abounds ; but how produced 1 cannot say. 

 The praying mantis (3/. religiosa), as we learn from M. Goureau, when 

 alarmed and having put itself in an attitude of defence, rubs the sides of 

 the abdomen against the interior borders of the wings and elytra, so as to 

 produce a noise like that of parchment rubbed together.^ The most 

 remarkable noise, however, proceeding from insects under alarm, is that 

 emitted by the death's-head hawk-moth, and for which it has long been 

 celebrated. The Lejndoptera, though some of them, as we have seen, 

 produce a sound when they fly, at other limes are usually mute insects : 

 but this alarmist — for so it may be called, from the terrors which it has 

 occasioned to the superstitious — when it walks and more particularly when 

 it is confined, or taken into the hand, sends forth a strong and sharp cry, 

 resembling, some say, that of a mouse, but more plaintive, and even 

 lamentable, which it continues as long as it is held. This cry does not 

 appear to be produced by the wings ; for when they, as well as the thorax 

 and abdomen are held down, it becomes still louder. Schroeter says that 

 the animal, when it utters its cry, rubs its tongue against its head^^; and Rosel, 

 that it produces it by the friction of the thorax and abdomen.'^ But Reau- 

 mur believed, after the most attentive examination, that the cry came 

 from the mouth, or rather from the tongue ; and he thought that it was 

 produced by the friction of the palpi against that organ. When, by means 

 of a pin, he unfolded the spiral tongue, the cry ceased ; but as soon as it 

 was rolled up again between the palpi it was renewed. He next pre- 

 vented the palpi from touching it, and the sound also ceased ; and upon 

 removing only one of them, though it continued, it became much more 

 feeble.^ Huber, however denies that it is produced by the friction of the 

 tongue and palpi^: as does M. Passerini, who conceives that it is owing 

 to the alternate inspiration and expiration of air from the central canal of 

 the proboscis into a peculiar cavity in the head destined for giving it the 

 required resonance. But on the other hand MM. Duponchel, Aube, 

 Boisduval, Pierret, and Rambur, members of the Entomological Society 

 of France, who expressly instituted a series of experiments in order to 

 ascertain the actual cause of the noise, came to the conclusion that it is 

 not owing to any of those hitherto assigned, and yet remains to be discov- 

 ered, and that the noise itself has little of the plaintive cry attributed to 

 it, but has the greatest analogy with that made by most of the Capricorn 

 beetles (Frionus, Lamia, he), as above described.'' If the observation 

 of a friend of Mr. Raddon, that this noise is sometimes made by the moth 

 just before issuing from the pupa^, be correct, it would go far to prove 

 that it is simply owing, as Rosel thought, to the same cause as that of the 

 Capricorn beetles, since the confined posture of the insect in the pupa 

 case, and the very limited quantity of air there inclosed, seem to forbid 

 the supposition that this last has any share in producing it. 



I must next say a few words upon the angry cliidings of our little 

 creatures ; for their anger sometimes vents itself in sounds. I have often 



' Hist. Ins. 56. * Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, x. bull, xviii. 



3 Nainrfnrscher Stk. xxi. 77. ■« III. 16. » Reaum. ii. 290. 



« Nouv. Obs. ii. 300., note *. '' Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, viii. 59. and ix. 125. 



' Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. ii. proc. Ixxvi. 



