12 



by) when taken were put alive into a boxj during their 

 confinement together, the male attacked the female and 

 nearly devoured one side of her. This is the reverse of a 

 fact recorded from Mr. Dorthes by Dr. Smith in the first 

 volume of his Tour, (p. 162,) of an insect of the same or- 

 der. Mantis religiosa. In this instance, after union the 

 female devoured the male. Male Spiders also, as Entomo- 

 logists who have attended to their ways relate, at the same 

 period are obliged to make their escape with the utmost 

 velocity from the murderous fangs of their female partners ; 

 who, if they did not, would destroy them without mercy. 

 How Crickets produce the unconnnon loud noise which 

 they make, seems not certainly ascertained ; Mouffet sup- 

 poses it to be the attrition of their wings, and says that a 

 friend of his, James Garret, an apothecary, produced the 

 same sound by taking off their wings and rubbing them 

 against each other. We suspect it to be by the attrition of 

 the abdomen against the thorax, having observed that the 

 common Grasshopper, when it chirps, vibrates its abdomen 

 with great quickness ; and when the noise ceases, this mo- 

 tion ceases with it. Scopoli savs, if this Cricket be intro- 

 duced inio a house, it will drive away the House Cricket. 



Mr. Curtis and Mr. Sowerby have frequently seen the 

 common green Locust, at Battersea, evidently produce this 

 noise by the attrition of the shoulder of one wing against 

 that of the other. 



Mr. Sowerby's son has observed a small species of Grass- 

 hopper, on the Downs at Yarmouth, to produce a noise by 

 the rubbing of the rough spines on the wings of that species 

 against the spines of the hinder legs. This he has fre- 

 quently performed on many of the smaller species. 



Scarabsei produce a certain noise by the forcing of air 

 through the respiratory pores of the abdomen. Different 

 insects, and even insects of the same genus, may have dif- 

 ferent modes of producing their peculiar sounds. 



