118 [October, 



was seen at once to elongate its strokes in the channel, and the notes came out again 

 loud and clear. When suddenly seized, it had also the power of emitting a strong 

 vinegary scent. This species, and the one taken in the railway carriage, employed 

 their rostrums to prick their captor sharply. A fourth stridulator, which is evidently 

 the perfect winged form of Eeduvius personatus, Wolff, I captured on the 18th July, 

 at Madonna del Pilone, behind my window shutter ; it performed readily, and its 

 notes were sharp and distinct. This species is said to emit a disagreeable mouse-like 

 odour (Suites k Buff on, Hemipt.). The fifth example (larva of Harpactor iracundus, 

 Scop.) was taken under a hedge atSpezia at the commencement of May, with a small 

 milky-winged insect on its right fore-tibia (which I subsequently gummed to the 

 part)*; but notwithstanding the suggestive structure of the rostrum and the existence 

 of the sub-thoracic groove, it would not stridulate on handling. These three musical 

 species I have now noticed, with Pirates stridulus, Reduvius iestaceus, and Coranus 

 suhaptervs, will augment the number of Reduviidce which have been observed to 

 stridulate to six ; while it may be also remarked, that this group of Hemiptera have 

 hitherto evinced only one incentive to stridulate, namely, fear on seizure, although 

 one species, Hke Cryptorhynchus lapathi among the rbynchophorous Coleoptera, was 

 most disposed to do so when the paroxysm was passing off ; and, further, that it has 

 yet to be determined whether the several species, viewed in regard to sex and stage 

 of development, present gradations in their capability for music or not. 



As regards Hymenopterous stridulators, I was able to procure females of Mutilla 

 hungarica, F., at Ana Capri, some wandering on clayey spots, and others taken, 

 covered with honey, emerging from the cells of a small violet bee, Chalicodoma 

 muraria, F. These Midillce stridulated loudly on seizure, the sound produced by the 

 captive drawing in and out beneath the hinder edge of the much elongated second 

 segment of the abdomen, the striated raised and rounded shield on the front of the 

 articulating surface of the third segment, by the contraction and protrusion of the 

 last four segments that form a conical termination to this part. When first seized, 

 they would produce a sharp sound — tip ! tip ! — by drawing this shield half under 

 the second segment and then pausing ; this note was then lengthened by a complete 

 movement of the segment forward ; and then the action lapsed into a quickly reci- 

 procating double stroke, causing the note to rise in pitch. On seizure they also 

 thi'catened with an elongate sting. Their organs of music closely i-esemble those of 

 the longicorn Coleoptera, except in being placed on the abdominal rings in lieu of 

 those of the thoracic division, and that the single lima is here the active agent, while 

 there it is the passive. 



I also took, at the commencement of July, on a willow sapling near Turin, where 

 Lucanus cervus, some longicorn beetles, and insects of other Orders were collected 

 sucking or licking sap, a stridulating male of the Elateridce. This individual 

 (Lacon murinus, L.), while I had it in captivity, would, on seizure, invariably 

 lift its head, like others of this group, when preparing for a spring, but, instead of 

 immediately afterwards depressing it to insert the elastic pro-sternal spine in the 

 meso-sterual groove, it first nodded the head and thorax thrice with a movement and 

 noise resembling that of a longicorn — wliee ! whee ! ivhee 1 — a sound, I conceive, 

 originated by the rounded superior surfaces of the twin claws that constitute the 

 spine-point, which are faintly striate, vibrating over the entrance of the meso-sternal 

 groove. — ^A. H. Swinton, Tui-in : July 2bth, 1878. 



* An Aleurodcs. — Eds. 



