BEETLES THAT "BLUFF" 221 



case and the leg. One of the wings bears a file on its inner 

 surface, the other, the right wing, is furnished with a sharp 

 edge placed on a prominent part of its inner margin. 

 By slightly tilting the fore-wings, or wing-cases, and 

 vibrating them rapidly, the edge passes under the file 

 and a musical sound is produced. By this means one of 

 our native long-horned Grasshoppers {Locusta viridis- 

 simd) produces a shrill, but not unpleasant, sound, 

 capable of being sustained continuously for a quarter of 

 an hour. But a species encountered by Bates during his 

 travels in the Amazons is a much more efficient performer. 

 Known by the name of Tanana by the natives, it is so 

 much admired by them for its singing powers that it is 

 kept in little cages as we keep Canaries. That these 

 organs are of importance to the species may be gathered 

 from the case of a Bulgarian long-horned or Green 

 Grasshopper {Poecilimon affinis), wherein the wings have 

 so degenerated as to be useless in flight, but in the male 

 they have been retained solely as musical instruments. 

 In some species both sexes have a music-producing 

 apparatus, but as a rule this is present only in the male. 



That these curious and complex stridulating organs do 

 indeed primarily act as aphrodisiacs seems to have been 

 clearly demonstrated by the naturalist Bates, who, in 

 speaking of the European Field Cricket remarks : " The 

 male has been observed to place himself at the entrance 

 to his burrow, and stridulate until a female approaches, 

 when the louder notes are succeeded by a more subdued 

 tone, whilst the successful musician caresses with his 

 antennae the mate he has won." 



Among the most efficient and most celebrated per- 

 formers of all on these instruments of percussion are 

 the " Katydids " of North America. The sounds they 



