MUSIC BOX, INSTRUMENTS 51 



KENNETH. They don't pay any attention to a tin can 

 when I hammer it near the nest. 



FLORENCE. Why don't you have some kind of a horn 

 or wind instrument? 



ANT. Something like a man's nose, for instance? Well, 

 I have. A number of little breathing pores on my body do 

 the trick. A little plate over the entrance of each pore 

 vibrates and makes a noise when I force breath over it. 

 See? 



CECIL. There are about twenty of the pores (spiracles) 

 some on the abdomen and some on the body near the legs. 



FLORENCE. After the wings of a fly have been re- 

 moved I can still hear it buzz, but I can't hear you. 



ANT. You could if there were enough of us together. 

 Why, you can hear a queen buzz several inches away. 



FLORENCE. All of you ought to have wings and then 

 you could stand in your door and buzz and make a draft 

 to ventilate your house like bees and winged ants do. I 

 suppose your buzzers aren't as good a talking machine as 

 your phonograph. What else you got? 



ANT. Some ants have eight pairs of stringed instru- 

 ments. We have more than that, besides a pair in each 

 feeler, but man isn't certain that they are for making 

 sound, and I won't tell. Man doesn't know what the little 

 umbrella-shaped bodies in the pits on our jaws and joints 

 are for, either. 



CECIL. Maybe these are parts of your wireless outfit. 

 An ant's stringed instrument might feel a sound and act 

 as a sense of touch. Seeing is by sense of touch, anyway. 

 The waves do the touching. 



FLORENCE. Listen at that grasshopper fiddling. He is 

 drawing the file on his thigh across his wings. Sounds 

 kind o' nice. 



CECIL. Yes, and look at this ant sliding the plates of 



