OTHER FLYING INSECTS 293 



intervals for rest and refreshment; a miraculous 

 dance in which it suspends itself, still as a stone- 

 fly suspended in the air, then suddenly vanishes to 

 describe a hundred fantastic figures in its flight, like 

 a skater figure-skating on the ice, with such velocity 

 as to be now invisible and now seen as a faint 

 shadowy line by the onlooker. 



It has the habit, like that of the humming-bird, 

 of darting close to your face and remaining motion- 

 less in the air for some time, and when thus suspended 

 close to your face you are able to hear and appreciate 

 the sounds it emits — the fine clear musical note and 

 its changes. I cannot but believe at such times that 

 its wing-music is as much to the insect itself as are 

 its brilliant fantastic motions ; that if the fly could be 

 magnified to the size of, let us say, a humming-bird, 

 and the sound it produced increased in the same 

 degree and made audible to us, we should find 

 the music an appropriate and an essential part of 

 the performance. 



Nor do I believe that this joy is confined to the 

 dipterous insects : I would say that all flying insects 

 receive pleasure from the sounds they emit, even as 

 do the non-flyers that make their music on trees or 

 on the ground, or even under it, like the mole cricket; 

 I would, in fact, include all wing-made sounds, from 

 the inaudible pipe of the dancing midge to the 

 drowsy hum of honey-bees and the booming of the 

 big carpenter and bumble-bees; the dry -leaf buz- 

 zing of wasps; the sharp silky rustle of dragon-flies 

 and the drone of beetles, such as that of our own 



