MANNER OF PRODUCING ITS NOTE. 105 



diately came to him, — an experiment which he fre- 

 quently repeated with the same result." * 



Those facts show that Linnaeus and Bonnet were 

 incorrect in denying that insects can hear at aU ; and 

 that Shakspeare has evinced his usual accuracy of 

 discrimination, when he says, in the "Winter's 

 Tale," 



" I will teU it softly; 

 Yon crickets shall not hear me." 



Act II. Sc. I. 



After so many quotations descriptive of the song 

 of the cricket, shall I be credited when I state, that 

 he has no song, in our acceptation of the term, — 

 that is, no peculiar note, produced, Hke the human 

 voice, or the song of birds, by the modulation of 

 vocal organs, or by air expelled from the mouth .'' 

 And yet, the chirp of the cricket, the drowsy hum of 

 the beetle, the buzzing of the fly, the humming of 

 the bee, are all sounds produced without, what may 

 be properly termed, voice. 



In the beetle, they are probably caused by the 

 friction of the wing-cases {elytra) at the base of the 

 wings, throwing them into a strong ^•ibrator}■ motion. 

 Some species of grasshoppers eflfect a similar object, 

 by rubbing the elytra with the right and left legs 



* Comment. Instit. Bonon., vii. 199, &c. apud Lehmann. Quoted 

 by Rennie, Insect Miscellanies, p. 77. 



