INSECT VARIETY. 143 



indigenous species of Aealles. In the first instance I tried the 

 powers of single specimens by placing them in pill-boxes, which 

 I shook, to alarm the insects, and then applied them to my ear 

 for some time, without success ; at length I distinctly heard 

 the notes of A. rohoris — they were soft, gentle, and low/^ 

 The other sort, A. misellus, likewise proved to be musical, but 

 in a less degree. Mr. Smith also observed the motion of the 

 abdomen accompanying the music, and agreed with Mr. Wol- 

 laston as to the position of the musical lima in this genus. 



Mr. T. V. Wollaston likewise remarks, "In another weevil, a 

 large and noble Plinthus, which seems to be peculiar to the 

 Canaries, the music was scarcely so loud, in proportion to the size 

 of the creature. The stridulating instrument, nevertheless, is per- 

 haps somewhat better defined. It is entirely the same in position 

 and general character as the one that obtains in Aealles, except 

 that the sub-opaque portion of the inner tegument of the elytra 

 is, instead of being sub-recticular, strictly file-like, being made 

 up of a series of minute, close-set, regular, and parallel ridges, 

 similar to those on the mesonotum of the Longicorns. In this 

 insect, christened P. m}u\icus, Mr. Wollaston not only observed 

 the stridulation frequently, but effected the noises artificially 

 by vibrating the terminal segment of the abdomen. He also 

 describes P. velntiniis as a stridulator. There is a native species 

 of this genus found under stones on the Downs, but whether it 

 be musical or not I cannot say.^"* 



Some larvse jDertaining to the Curculionidae are internal 

 feeders, while others, like the bright caterpillars of Lepidoptera, 

 live quite exposed, and even form network cocoons. One 

 indigenous weevil of musical capacity, the Mononychua pseuda- 

 cori, Fab., is cradled in the early stages of its existence in the 

 seed-pod of the yellow water iris, from which it emerges in 

 July. This insect, according to Dr. Darwin, Mr. F. Smith 

 once kept alive in confinement, and ascertained that both 

 male and female stridulate, and in an equal degree. During 

 the month of August I captui'ed one of these stridulating 

 Rhynchoi^hora near Turin. The music was, as in the former 

 case, produced by the coleopteron depressing its abdomen one- 

 sixteenth of an inch at the apex, and then withdrawing it 

 beneath the elytra ; but although sharp and file-like, the sound 



