122 Voice in Insects. 



spiracles. Who has not noticed that a bumble-bee impris- 

 oned closely in a flower still hums? I have also heard a 

 carpenter-bee in a tunnel hardly larger than its body, hum 

 loudly. Landois found this hum ceased when the spiracles 

 were closed with wax. He describes quite an intricate 



Fig 



a Jaw of Drone. b Jaw of Queen. c Jaw of Worker. 



voice box, vi^ith a complex folded membrane, the tension 

 of which is controlled through the action of a muscle and 

 tendon. Thus we see that the bees have a vocal organiza- 

 tion not very unlike our own in the method of its action. 

 The piping of the queen is probably this true voice. Lan- 

 dois also states that bees and other insects also make noise 

 by the movement of the abdominal segments, the one on 

 the other. From the enormous muscles in the thorax 

 (Fig. 15,) we should expect rapid flight in bees. Marked 

 bees have been known to fly one-half mile, unload and return 

 in six minutes, and double that distance in eleven minutes. 

 In thirty minutes they went two and one-half miles 

 unloaded and returned. Thus they fly slower when forag- 

 ing at a distance. These experiments' were tried by my 

 students, and the time was in the afternoon. I think they 

 are reliable. Possibly, early in the day the rapidity would 

 be greater. Sometimes swarms go so slowly that one can 

 keep up with them. At other times they fly so rapidly 

 that one needs a good horse to closely follow them. Here 

 the rate depends on the queen. 



The legs of worker bees are very strangely modified. 

 As they are exceedingly useful in the bee economy, this is 

 not strange. We find in the progressive development of 

 all animals, that such organs as are most used are most 



