174 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



they would respond to an electric light if flashed just previous 

 to the time of their normal light. He notes, however, that 

 during five years he had never at any other time seen this 

 co-ordination in P. consangitineus or any other species. 



Still more recently, 0. A. Eheinking (' Science,' May 20th, 

 1921), describes the synchronised flashing of fire-flies of the 

 genus Caliphotes in Siam, where all the insects on one tree 

 flashed together perfectly at regular intervals at a rate of between 

 105 and 109 flashes per minute. 



Other records are quoted in the above and Blair (' Nature,' 

 vol. xcvi, 1915, p. 411) says that the phenomenon has been 

 noticed in the European species of Luciola and in the genus 

 Aspidiosoma in South America. 



Turning to the co-ordination of sound production I have only 

 been able to find a very few records. Sharp (' Camb. Nat. Hist. 

 Ins.,' vol. ii, p. 156) gives two of these without references. The 

 first, credited to Forbes, refers to a large brown ant found in 

 Sumatra which produces a tapping noise by striking the leaf with 

 its head. It is a species of the genus Polyrachis. The indi- 

 viduals were " spread over a space of perhaps two yards in 

 diameter on the stem, leaves and branches of a great tree which 

 had fallen, and not within sight of each other ; yet the tapping: 

 was set up at the same moment and stopped at the same instant. 

 After the lapse of a few seconds all recommenced at the same 

 instant. The interval was always of about the same duration, 

 though I did not time it ; each ant did not, however, beat 

 synchronously with every other in the congeries nearest to me ;. 

 there were independent tappings so that a sort of tune was 

 played, each congeries dotting out its own music, yet the 

 beginnings and endings of the musical parties were strictly 

 synchronous." 



The second record given by Sharp is that according to a 

 Mr. Peal, an ant, presumably an Assamese species, " makes a 

 concerted noise loud enough to be heard by a human being, 

 at twenty to thirty feet distant, the sound being produced by 

 each ant scraping the horny apex of the abdomen three times in 

 succession on the dry crisp leaves of which the nest is usually 

 composed. H 



In 1900 Gounelle ('Bull. Ent. Soc. France,' 1900, p. 168) r 

 describes the sounds produced by a large number of termites 

 tapping with their heads on dried leaves of Bromeliads in Brazil,, 

 but the movement is apparently not rhythmic and he describes 

 it as " like a pinch of sand hitting paper." In the same paper 

 he also describes a concerted noise produced by ants of the 

 genus Camponotus in rolled-up leaves of bamboo, again by 

 tapping with their heads. 



The last record is of the " Snowy Tree Cricket " {Oecanthuz 

 niveus) of which Comstock says (' Introduction to Entomology,' 



