14i4i THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



was audible ouly at a short distance from the ear. On examina- 

 tion it appeared the elytra were united, and posteriorly and 

 inferiorly truncated for about one-third their length, where 

 interiorly there was an ebon black triangular patch, wider pos- 

 teriorly, that, showing longitudinal striation, evidently con- 

 stituted a lima over which the lower edge of the latter superior 

 arcs was adapted to sound. 



It would thus seem the limse in the weevils should be looked 

 for beneath the elytral tips, although Herr Westring indeed finds 

 them otherwise in Cryptorliynchas lapathi, L., and states that in 

 some other small weevils there is an opaque transversely semi- 

 circular surface on the fore margin of the anal segment, but 

 it does not appear that any of these last, save perchance Nedyiis 

 Echil, Fab., have claims to be considered musical. Thus, in 

 these stridulating weevils we have probably the outliers of a 

 musical group, which, like the creaking Longicornia, dwindle 

 down to minute species, whose sounding striai are scarcely 

 capable of being discriminated beneath our most powerful 

 lenses — one of these I have portrayed in its natural size on 

 Plate III., Fig 2. Surely such little gongs, resounding within 

 acorn-cup and heather-bell, present us with a marvel allied to 

 the barking dog of the fairy tales enclosed in a nut-shell. 



Emerging from the dim light of the Secondary ages in 

 Europe, with their abundance of fish-lizards, bird-reptiles, 

 birds with teeth, and occasionally strange insects, denoting a 

 period of general metamorphosis, in the Tertiary we clearly see 

 the giant Longicornia, inseparably connected with the hoary 

 monarchs of the time-changed forest and its fallen mossed and 

 lichened trunks, whose livery they weai*, and which they bore 

 into as larvae, and sun themselves on when arrived at maturity. 

 Like the leaf-devouring coleoptera they indicate at the present 

 time a maximum as to size and number, as we advance towards 

 the equator ; on whose teeming growth they form a natural 

 cheek by demolition, and stimulus by thinning out. The Long- 

 horns are also beetles whose economy is not uninteresting or 

 uninstructive, whether we regard the capability many possess 

 of diffusing musky liquid perfumes of the odour of tea-roses or 

 sweet-briar, the singular pruning and trimming the matron 

 Lamia and Pr tonus confers with her mandibles to the twia: she 



