390 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



able fact, that the queens educated according to M. 

 Schirach's method are absolutely mute ; on which ac- 

 count the bees keep no guard around their c6lls, nor 

 retain them an instant in them after their transforma- 

 tion''. 



The passions, also, which urge us to various excla- 

 mations, elicit from insects occasionally certain sounds. 

 Fear, anger, sorrow, joy, or love and desire, they ex- 

 press in particular instances by particular noises. I 

 shall begin with those which they emit when under any 

 alarm. One larva only is recorded as uttering a cry of 

 alarm, and it produces a perfect insect remarkable for 

 the same faculty : I allude to Sp/iinx Atropos. Its ca- 

 terpillar, if disturbed at all, draws back rapidly, making 

 at the same time a rather loud noise, which has been 

 compared to the crack of an electric spark''. — You 

 would scarcely think that any quiescent pupce could 

 show their fears by a sound, — yet in one instance this 

 appears to be the case. De Geer having made a small 

 incision in the cocoon of a moth, which included that 

 of its parasite Ichneumon (/. Cantator, De G.), the in- 

 sect concealed within the latter uttered a little cry, 

 similar to the chirping of a small grasshopper, conti- 

 nuing it for a long time together. The sound was pro- 

 duced by the friction of its body against the elastic sub- 

 stance of its own cocoon, and was easily imitated by 

 rubbing a knife against its surface '^. 



But to come to perfect insects. Many beetles when 

 taken show their alarm by the emission of a shrill, sibi- 

 lant, or creaking sound — which some compare to the 

 chirping of young birds — produced by rubbing their 



■ Huber, i. 292— " Fuessl. ^rcliiv. 8. 10, " De Geer, vii. 594. 



