378 NOlSJiS or INSECTS. 



Whether the innumerable locust armies, to which I 

 have so often called your attention, make any noise in 

 their flight, I have not been able to ascertain ; the 

 mere impulse of the wings of myriads and myriads of 

 these creatures upon the air, must, one would think, 

 produce some sound. In the symbolical locusts men- 

 tioned in the Apocalypse % this is compared to the 

 sound of chariots rushing to battle : an illustration 

 which the inspired author of that book would scarcely 

 have had recourse to, if the real locusts winged their 

 way in silence. 



Amongst the Hemiptera^ I know only a single spe- 

 cies that is of noisy flight ; though doubtless, were the 

 attention of entomologists directed to that object, others 

 would be found exhibiting the same peculiarity. The 

 insect I allude to {Coreiis marginatus^ F.) is one of the 

 numerous tribe of bugs; when flying, especially when 

 hovering together in a sunny sheltered spot, they emit 

 a hum as loud as that of the hive-bee. 



From the magnitude and strength of their wings, it 

 might be supposed that many lepidopicrous insects 

 would not be silent in their flight ; — and indeed many 

 of the hawk-moths (Sphmx, F.), and some of the 

 larger moths {Bomhi/x^ F.), are not so ; B. Cossks, for 

 instance, is said to emulate the booming of beetles by 

 means of its large stiff" wings ; whence in Germany it 

 is called the humming-bird (Brunim- Vogcl). — But the 

 great body of these numerous tribes, even those that 

 fan the air with " sail-broad vans," produce little or 

 no sound by their motion. I must therefore leave 

 them, as well as the Trichoplera and Neuroptera^ which 



^ Rev. ix. 9. 



