St THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



Space and iDcIiuation, however, forbid me to enter largely on the 

 finespun theories o£ mimicry and protection now rife. 



With the more curious and general reader, as treating of the 

 music, dances, ornament, and distribution of a class whose ways 

 contribute in no small measure to our enjoyment, and constitute 

 an heirloom in our literature, this little work may also, I trust, 

 find favour. How few, for example, not professedly entomolo- 

 gists, could tell you how a grasshopper sings or why a gnat 

 dances ; and I despair not that even the physicist and mechanician 

 may devise from a study of insect organs of music phonetic 

 arrangements that shall hereafter be struck to charm anew the 

 human auditory nerve, or that shall rank with the steam 

 whistle as a herald of danger. The importance of this branch 

 of natural acoustics to the electrician has already been mani- 

 fested in the construction of the telephone. 



Lastly, I have to tender my sincere acknowledgments to 

 many leading entomologists, who from time to time during the 

 last ten years have tendered me assistance, by naming my 

 species, or by bringing my pursuits into public notice ; and 

 authors and others to whose patient researches I am more largely 

 indebted, will I trust, as far as literary compilation admits, 

 find courteous mention in passing. _, 



Guildford, 1880. 



