THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 325 



are dark, and it is on the back of the latter that the insect bears 

 its dreaded badge, the death's head, to which it owes its name, 

 figured in yellowish grey upon a sable ground. 



The power possessed by the death's-head of emitting sound 

 (a gift rarely, if at all in any other instance, bestowed upon 

 its race) gives to this singular moth another fancifully imputed 

 attribute of the supernatural ; and the character of its voice, 

 if voice it may be called, loud, shrill, and wailing, invests 

 it with an accordant tone of evil augury. However fanciful 

 its prophecy of ill to others, the lament of this unusually com- 

 plaining creature would seem to be a real expression of being 

 ill at ease itself, since, according to Reaumur, when " shut up 

 in a box, it cries ; when caught, it cries; and when held between 

 the fingers, it never ceases crying." 



Naturalists have been sorely puzzled and widely at variance 

 as to the organs producing this frequently-employed voice. 

 One supposes it to proceed from the body ; another thinks it 

 is produced by friction of the chest upon the abdomen, the 

 wings having nothing to do therewith ; a third, tout au con- 

 trairej supposes he has discovered the organs of sound in a 

 pair of scales at the wing's base, played upon by the action of the 

 pinions themselves. 1 Reaumur opined that the cry proceeded 

 from the insect's head, its immediate source being the friction 

 of the palpi against the tongue. Passerini, Dumeril, and 

 Duponchel, have traced the origin of the sound to the interior 

 of the insect's head ; from which, according to the statement 

 of the latter, the sound continues to proceed on separation of 

 the body. 



Yet later than all the above varied opinions, and only accor- 

 dant with one, comes that of Mr. Denny, according to which, 

 the true organs, producing the death's-head's melancholy strain, 

 are two large moveable horny scales, at the bases of the upper 

 wings, fixed on the thorax, and covering each a small aperture, 

 which is also a horny substance. In proof that the vibration of 

 1 M. De Johet. 



1 1 



