260 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



knocking, and such is their jealousy or their zeal to 

 answer, that even the ticking of an innocent watch ex- 

 cites their wrath and their loudest notes. 



The bright troops of virgin-moths and fresh-born but- 

 terflies, seem to speak by the brilliancy of their colors 

 only, and thus to appeal through the eye to the heart 

 of their beloved. Darwin tells us, however, of some in 

 South America, who, when a pair are chasing each other, 

 make a clicking noise that is heard at considerable dis- 

 tance. That charming traveller found they had a kind 

 of drum near the first pair of wings, by which they 

 produced this noise to attract the female. The spinax, 

 (atropos,) clad in sad colors, and quaintly marked, ac- 

 tually utters a low whine, when caught, and thus pre- 

 sents the lowest voice of suffering known in the animal 

 kingdom. 



The craw-fish, also, has but a single note of pain; 

 when drawn on shore, it utters a low, angry sound, that 

 seems to rise from the innermost parts of its curious 

 body. Naturalists speak, besides, of a gentle, humming 

 noise, resembling that of beetles, which it makes when 

 enjoying the sun and its genial warmth; it ceases, how- 

 ever, the instant any other noise is heard, and has thus 

 been but rarely observed. 



"The voice of the turtle is heard in the land," but 

 it has little to please the ear or to attract attention. 

 Nor are fishes better endowed in point of language. 

 They have a thick, immovable tongue, adhering firmly 

 to the lower jaw. A voice would, however, be of small 

 avail to them in an element so little sonorous as wa- 



