376 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



many of them, their hum is a sound of terror and dis- 

 may to those who hear it. To man, the trumpet of the 

 gnat or mosquito; and to beasts, that of the gad-fly; 

 of various kinds of horse-flies ; and of the Ethiopian 

 zimb, as I have before related at large ^, is the sig- 

 nal of intolerable annoyance. Homer, in his Batra- 

 chomyomachia, long ago celebrated the first of these as 

 a trumpeter — 



" For their sonorous trumpets far renown'd, 

 Of battle the dire charge mosquitos sound." 



Mr. Pope, in his translation, with his usual inaccuracy, 

 thinking no doubt to improve upon his author, has 

 turned the old bard's gnats into hornets. In Guiana 

 these animals are distinguished by a name still more 

 tremendous, being called the devil's trumpeters ''. I 

 have observed that early in the spring, before their thirst 

 for blood seizes them, gnats when flying emit no sound. 

 At this moment (Feb. 18) two females are flying about 

 my windows in perfect silence. 



After this short account of insects that give notice 

 when they are upon the wing by the sounds that precede 

 them, I must inquire by what means these sounds are 

 produced. Ordinarily, except perhaps in the case of 

 the gnat, they seem perfectly independent of the will of 

 the animal ; and in almost every instance, the sole in- 

 struments that cause the noise of flying insects are their 

 wings, or some parts near to them, which, by their 

 friction against the trunk, occasion a vibration — as the 

 fingers upon the strings of a guitar — yielding a sound 

 more or le§s acute in proportion to the rapidity of their 



^ Vol. I. 113. 146— *" Stcdman's Stirimm, i. 24. 



