HEARING IN INSECTS. 95 



( Culex ) is to us, but probably for a different 



reason.* 



The drone of the dung-beetle ( Geotrupes sterco- 

 rariiis), on the other hand, is, like the hum of the 

 industrious bee, rather pleasant than disagreeable, 

 from its being associated with the still twilight of a 

 summer's evening ; though Linnceus was certainly 

 wrong in thinking it an indication of fine weather. 

 It is probably occasioned by the friction of the wing- 

 cases upon the base of the wings, throwing them into 

 vibratory motion. Though most commonly remarked 

 in this beetle, it is not peculiar to it, for we have ob- 

 served it, though not quite so loud, in the flight of the 

 musk-beetle ( Ceramhyx odoratus, De Geer) and in 

 the green rose-chafer ( Cetonia aurata) , whose loud 

 humming, as we once noticed in one flying around a 

 wild rose-tree in Epping Forest, made us suppose it 

 to be the violet carpenter-bee {Xylocopa violacea), 

 which has not hitherto been found in Britain.! 



Most of the larger animals have particular cries ex- 

 pressive of fear, distress, or danger ; but we are not 

 well acquainted with these in the insect world. The 

 one most familiar, but not, that we are aware, men- 

 tioned by naturalists, is the peculiar buzzing of flies 

 when they fall into the fangs of the spider. We 

 say ^ peculiar,' because it is altogether unlike any 

 sound emitted by flies at any other time. As a fly 

 does not emit this sound when it is accidentally be- 

 trayed to venture too far into a honey-pot, nor when 

 it is caught by the hand, it must arise from some in- 

 stinctive knowledge of the nature of its arch enemy, 

 rather than from the mere circumstance of its being 

 entrapped : yet we have heard flies emit this sound 

 when caught in a spider's web that had been deserted 



* See Insect Arehitecture, p. 405. t J. R. 



