284 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



annoyed. The love of honey leads it to enter bee-hives, where 

 its presence, or, as Huber suggests, its singular power of 

 emitting sounds, seems to have a Mesmeric influence over 

 the bees, who often allow this huge moth to pass unmolested 

 between the combs, dipping its short maxillae into the cells, 

 and draining them, one after another, of their luscious con- 

 tents. Sometimes, however, it appears not to escape scathe- 

 less from these marauding expeditions, but falls a victim 

 either to its own gluttony or the just resentment of the bees: 

 be this as it may, the dead body of the moth is occasionally 

 found walled up in wax, and exhibiting evidence of having 

 made strenuous but ineffectual efforts to escape : this hive- 

 robbing propensity is very familiar to bee-keepers in Africa 

 and on the continent of Europe, who now usually construct 

 their hives in a fashion that precludes the entrance of so 

 bulky a robber ; in this precautionary measure Huber tells 

 us the bees themselves also take part, and, acting on the 

 theory of locking the stable-door after the steed is stolen, 

 these industrious insects, after being repeatedly robbed of 

 their honey, barricade the entrance to their hive with wax, 

 leaving only such an opening as is absolutely necessary for 

 their own ingress and egress. With regard to the squeaking 

 sound emitted by the pupa and imago, a vast deal has been 

 written, but nothing worth repeating : it has, however, been 

 clearly shown by Mr. WoUaston, one of the very best ob- 

 servers and most logical writers that the science of Entomo- 

 logy has ever produced, that the somewhat singular noise 

 made by certain longicorn beetles is the result of friction, 

 and having found the actual organs employed, he was able 

 to reproduce the sound in the dead insect by rubbing the 

 parts together (see ' Insecta Maderensia,' p. 432) : here, then, 

 is possibly the solution of stridulant or squeaking sounds pro- 

 duced by insects, and the Death's-head insect must not be 

 excepted: its so-called "cry" is accompanied by motion, 

 and at every movement the posterior "polished edge of the 

 thoracic mass seems to be rubbed against the anterior edge 

 of the abdominal mass ; and the sound, simultaneously pro- 

 duced, leading to the conclusion that the organ of voice, if so 

 it may be called, is similarly located in Coleoptera and Le- 

 pidoptera. Whether the popular names of this moth, its 

 taste for honey, the peculiar ornamentation of its thorax, or 



