AUDITORY SENSE OF HONEY-BEE 179 
2. Sound-producing organs of other insects 
Pemberton (’11) experimented with several species of Syr- 
phidae, house-fly, honey-bee, and bumble-bee. He says that 
they do not produce audible sounds by the spiracles or tracheae, 
but that all humming or buzzing sounds made by them are 
produced solely by the wings, either by their vibration in the air 
or by the wing bases striking against the body wall. This author 
did not study the anatomy of the wing bases. 
Aubin (14), as well as Pemberton, used the syrphid or common 
drone-fly (Eristalis tenax) in all his detailed experiments. The 
former author, after experimenting with this fly and after 
carefully identifying all the parts in the bases of its wings, con- 
cludes that the buzzing sound is made by a rapid vibration of 
certain thoracic muscles, attached to a particular sclerite, which 
strikes the thorax at a given point. The resonant apparatus, 
consisting of another sclerite and its attached membranes, is 
thrown into a state of vibration, producing the buzzing sound 
which is about an octave higher than the humming noise, made 
by the distal portions of the wings. In the honey-bee, according 
to the observations of the present. writer, no part of the wing 
base strikes the thorax during the vibration. Aubin believes 
that, according to the laws of acoustics, the resonant areas in 
the wing base of this fly might respond to the buzzing of other 
flies and thus form one of the elements of an auditory apparatus. 
If this were true, a nervous connection would be necessary. In 
all probability, no such connection exists in this fly, and certainly 
not in the honey-bee. 
Judging from the known sound-producing apparatus, and so- 
called auditory organs in crickets, grasshoppers, and katydids, 
the males are usually neither deaf nor dumb, but the females 
are always dumb, although not generally deaf. The males of 
crickets, katydids, and of some grasshoppers make sounds by 
rubbing their wings together, whereas other grasshoppers make 
sounds by rubbing the hind legs against the wings. Both sexes 
possess so-called ears, which in crickets and katydids (Locustidae) 
are found on the front tibiae, but in grasshoppers (Acrididae) 
on the abdomens. As far as known, the female cicada is both 
