IXSECTS : WINGS AND THEIR APPENDAGES. 103 



(joneave surface. Tims the bundle of muscles being al- 

 ternately and briskly relaxed and contracted, will by 

 its play draw in and let out tlie drum : so that its con- 

 vex surface being thus rendered concave when pulled 

 in, when let out a sound will be produced by the e£Port 

 to recover its convexity ; which, striking upon the mir- 

 ror and other membranes before it escapes from under 

 the operculum, will be modulated and augmented by 

 them. I should imngine that the muscular bundles are 

 extended and contracted by the alternate approach and 

 recession of the trunk and abdomen to and from each 

 other. 



" And now, my friend," adds the excellent author, 

 " what adorable wisdom, what consummate art and 

 skill are displayed in the admirable contrivance and 

 complex structure of this wonderful, this unparalleled 

 apparatus ! The great Creator has placed in these in- 

 sects an organ for producing and emitting sounds, 

 which in the intricacy of its construction seems to 

 resemble that which He has given to man and the 

 larger animals for receiving them. Here is a coclilea^ 

 a meatus^ and, as it would seem, more than one tym- 

 panum ! " 



In some mstances the sounds of insects more nearly 

 approach the character of true voices ; at least so far 

 as they are produced by the emission of air from the 

 breathing organs. One of the most eminent of conti- 

 nental entomologists. Dr. Burmeister, tells us so. 

 Finding that the buzz of a large fly {Eristalis tenax) 

 still continued after the winglets, the poisers, and even 

 the wings, had been quite cut oif except their stumps 

 (only in the last case the sound was somewhat weaker 



