378 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



might occasion the sound. Upon this, cutting both off, 

 he examined the mutilated fly with a microscope, and 

 found that the remaining fragments of the wings were in 

 constant motion all the time that the buzzing continued ; 

 but that upon pulling* them up by the roots all sound 

 ceased a . Shelver's experiments, noticed in my last let- 

 ter, go to prove, with respect to the insects that he 

 examined, that the winglets are more particularly con- 

 cerned with the buzzing. Upon cutting off' the wings 

 of a fly but he does not state that he pulled them up 

 by the roots he found the sound continued. He next 

 cut off the poisers the buzzing went on. This experi- 

 ment was repeated eighteen times with the same result. 

 Lastly, when he took off' the winglets, either wholly or 

 partially, the buzzing ceased. This, however, if correct, 

 can only be a cause of this noise in the insects that have 

 winglets. Numbers have them not. He next, therefore, 

 cut off the poisers of a crane-fly (Tipula crocata), and 

 found that it buzzed when it moved the wing. He cut 

 off half the latter, yet still the sound continued ; but 

 when he had cut off the whole of these organs the sound 

 entirely ceased b . 



Aristophanes in his Clouds, deriding Socrates, intro- 

 duces Chaerephon as asking that philosopher whether 

 gnats made their buz with their mouth or their tail c . 

 Upon which Mouffet very gravely observes, that the 

 sound of one of these insects approaching is much more 

 acute than that of one retiring ; from whence he very 

 sapiently concludes, that not the tail but the mouth 

 must be their organ of sound d . But after all, the fric- 



:> De Geer, vi. 13. b Wiedemann's Archiv. ii. 210. 217- 



e Act. i. Sc. 2. (1 Mouffet, 81. 



