» VOCAL S INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF INSECTS. 15 



knobby vein that runs along the inner margin of the fore wing 

 along a curved, raised vein on the hinder. Pyrameis cardui that 

 you may see the world over loves to sun on the pathway under 

 the flickering shadow of the tree, and when disturbed returns 

 with pertinacity to the delightful spot and expands its wings as 

 before. An inquirer in ' Science Gossip ' for 1878 asks : " Have 

 you observed a kind of metallic sound when the ' painted lady ' 

 is on the wing?" and Mr. J. I. Fountain answers in the 'Country- 

 side ' for November, 1906, that when missed by a stroke of the 

 net the rouged beauty is wont to return with a distinct and 

 petulant " click-click!" It is wonderful this truculent butterfly 

 should be so widespread ; it is disclosed in numbers from land 

 overrun with thistles, and its periodical migrations in Europe in 

 1741, 1828, 1836, and 1879 will in a measure account for it, but 

 I have seen it enjoying the sunshine on the stony declivity that 

 leads up to Napoleon's place of banishment in St. Helena, where 

 it could only have been brought in a ship ; this was in 1865. In 

 1875 Mr. Wollaston saw it there in company with that little 

 wandering blue Polyommatus hoeticiis and a black and white 

 Danais. In the Brazils and Isthmus of Panama is heard the 

 parchment cackle of the " whip butterflies," Ageronia or Peri- 

 dromia, feronia, ferentina (fornax), and amphione, when on the 

 wing. These are said to feed and sun upon the fallen oranges, 

 where the Daleshampia abounds, or alighting head downwards, 

 with their wings expanded to catch the warmth, to crawl about 

 the trunks of the Cassia and Mimosa, where they are protected 

 by their purple tints that match the grey bark and sunlight 

 shadows. Langsdorff, who met with ferentina in the island of 

 St. Catherine, off the coast of Brazil, remarked that it made a 

 noise like a rattle when it flew away, and the sound has since 

 been commented on by Darwin, Wallace, Van Volxen, and 

 Edwards, and compared to the " click-click ! " of a toothed 

 wheel or the startling din of a watchman's rattle. It is emitted 

 by both sexes when they are chasing one another, and the 

 crackling of amphione is said to be more grating. When ap- 

 proached, feronia &nd ferentina use their legs for running away, a 

 performance not expected of a butterfly. The production of the 

 sound seems obvious, for the vein that runs along the inner margin 

 of the fore wing is at its origin inflated into two bead-like bladders 



