3(78 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



might occasion the sound. Upon this, cutting both off, 

 he examined the mutilated fly with a microscope, and 

 found that the remaining fragments of the wings were in 

 constant motion all the time that tlie buzzing continued ; 

 but that upon pulling them up by the roots all sound 

 ceased ^. Shelver's experiments, notjced in my last let- 

 ter, go to prove, with respect to the insects that he 

 examined, that the winglets are more particularly con- 

 cerned with the buzzing. Upon cutting off the wings 

 of a fly — but he does not state that he pulled them, up 

 by the roots- — he found the sound continued. He next 

 cut off' the poisers — the buzzing went on. This experi- 

 ment was repeated eighteen times with the same result. 

 Lastly, when he took off' the winglets, either wholly or 

 partially, the buzzing ceased. This, however, if correct, 

 can only be a cause of this noise in the insects that have 

 winglets. Numbers have them not. He next, therefore, 

 cut off the poisers of a crane-fly {Tipula crocata\ and 

 found that it buzzed when it moved the wing. He cut 

 off' half the latter, yet still the sound continued ; but 

 when he had cut off' the whole of these organs the sound 

 entirely ceased ''. 



Aristophanes in his Clouds, deriding Socrates, intro- 

 duces Chaerephon as asking that philosopher whether 

 trnats made their buz with their mouth or their tail '^. 

 Upon which Mouffet very gravely observes, that the 

 sound of one of tiiese insects approaching is much more 

 acute than that of one retiring ; from whence he very 

 sapiently concludes, that not the tail but the mouth 

 must be their organ of sound '*. But after all, the fric- 



=> De Geer, vi. 13. '■ Wicdemami's ArcMv. ii. 210. 21/. 



" Act.lSc.2. ' MuiiflTct, 81. 



