FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 293 



quatcd, and our phraseology obsolete; even our present arts, 

 will I e considered rude, and our science infantile *. 



The sounds which are addressed to the ear for the pur- 

 pose of communicating thought, are not exclusively pro- 

 duced by the organs of respiration. Thus, when a rabbit 

 perceives danger, and wishes to give warning to others, it 

 does not utter a sound; but, beating the earth with its 

 feet, produces a noise, whose meaning its neighbours find 

 no difficulty to comprehend. In the insect well known by 

 the name of the Death-watch (Anobium), a sound is pro- 

 duced by striking its mandibles upon wood, and a similar 

 sound is produced in return by another individual when 

 within hearing. In many other insects, the noise is procluced 

 by the friction of the wings against each other, the air, or the 

 abdomen. In the Death's-head Hawk-moth (Sphinx atro- 

 pos), REAUMUR found that the noise which it emits when 

 confined, proceeds from the mouth, and is produced by the 

 friction of the palpi against the tongue. In the Tettigo- 

 niae, on the other hand, there is an organ seated in the ab- 

 domen, and opening on its under surface, containing cells, 

 elastic plates, and muscles, by whose motions, sounds, loud 

 and disagreeable, are produced -f-. In all these instances, 

 the sounds arc expressive of feelings, and are intelligible 



* Dr BARCLAY, in reference to this subject, states the truth with pain- 

 ful plainness : " Writers of taste, who value themselves on the beauty and 

 elegance of their diction, must often reflect with painful apprehension, 

 on the instability and transient nature of the perishing sounds with which 

 their literary fame is connected," p. 62. Again, " It seems to be owing to the 

 constant operations of such causes, whose influence can neither be checked 

 nor prevented, that no accident ever has occurred, no art ever been discover- 

 ed, to preserve the stability of vocal language, to call on the forebodings of 

 literary geniuses, and remove the apprehensions, that their laboured elo- 

 quence, in a few centuries, must require an interpreter, and the beauties of 

 rtieir diction pass unnoticed without a commentator." Ib. p. 83. 



f- Sec KIKBY and STENCE'S Introduction to Entomology, ii. p. 405. 



