Miscellaneous. 429 



as dark as French male's, when, according to the theory', all ought 

 to have been Italians like their mother, I thought it necessary to 

 examine these males more closely. I therefore collected 300 of 

 them and examined them most carefully, obtaining the following 

 statistics : — 



151 were pure Italians. 

 66 were hybrids in different degrees. 

 83 were French. 



From this it is evident that the drone eggs, hke those of the 

 females, receive the contact of the semen deposited by the male in 

 the female organs ; and the theory of Dzierzon, proposed to explain 

 an insufficiently ascertained fact, becomes useless if this fact is 

 disproved. 



It is easy to understand how an insufficient observation may have 

 led to the belief that the drones, the sons of an Italian mother 

 fecundated by a male of a different race, were all Italians. Of 300 

 males only 83 appeared to me to be strictly French, while 151 + 66 

 or 217, i. e. the great majority, being yellower than the French 

 drones, might easily pass for pure Italians. Thus, in such cases, 

 if a great number of males in a hybrid hive have not been carefully 

 examined one by one, it is easy to understand how it might be 

 believed that they all belonged to the same race as their mother, 

 especially when the latter belongs to the handsomer and yellower 

 Tace.—Com2)tes Rendus, September 9, 1878, p. 408. 



On the Cause of Buzzing in Insects. By M. Jotjssex de Bellesme. 



Referring to the paper on this subject by M. Perez, an abstract 

 of which appeared in the last number of this Journal, M. Jousset de 

 Bellesme has laid before the Academy of Sciences a statement of the 

 results arrived at by him, and communicated on August 23 to the 

 " Congres pour I'Avancement des Sciences," He says : — 



All insects in which the rapidity of vibration of the wing is 

 above eighty vibrations [per second ?] emit a perceptible sound 

 provided their wing-surface is sufficiently extensive. The suppres- 

 sion of the wings does away with this sound. 



The insects belonging to the orders Diptera and Hymenoptera 

 alone have the faculty of emitting two sounds — that just mentioned, 

 which is deep, and another, sharp sound, generally the octave of the 

 former. This faculty is the essential characteristic of buzzing. 

 When the wings are cut off a Volucella or a Humble-bee the deep 

 sound is abolished, but the sharp sound persists ; the deep sound is 

 therefore produced by the wing, while the sharp sound is indepen- 

 dent of it. 



Landois's opinion, according to which the sharp sound is due to 

 the issuing of the air through the stigmata and the vibration of the 

 valvules with which these are provided, is not tenable, seeing that 



