MANDUCA ATROPOS. 449 



Fr., (2), 1846, p. cxii) at length, experiments to show the origin of 

 the sound made by the imago and concludes that it is produced 

 " dans la spiritrompe par une mucosite que l'insecte aspire et foule 

 alternativement a l'aide de ses palpes et des muscles de la tete." It 

 now becomes necessary to refer to those observers who have, as it were, 

 followed up the idea of Rossi and Passerini, the latter of whom, as early 

 as 1828, in an excellent monograph ( Osservazioni sopra la Sphinx atropos, 

 etc., Pisa, 1828), clearly and correctly explained the whole matter, viz., 

 that the cavity in the head, alternately opened and closed by strong 

 muscles, and opening externally by means of a narrow transverse 

 aperture, is the source of the sound. Westmaas fully adopts (Tijds. 

 Ent. Ned., 1859, p. 131 • i860, p. 120) this view, and criticises 

 especially the statement of Wagner, who asserted that the air 

 cavity was in the abdomen and described (Miiller's Arch. f. Phy* 

 1836, .pp. 60-62) a relatively large sucking-bladder filled with 

 air, opening directly before the so-called stomach into the food 

 canal, and filling the entire upper part of the body ; he con- 

 sidered the sound to be due to the inspiration and expiration of 

 air to and from this sucking-bladder through the tongue, considering 

 it possible that that portion of the air, which passed through the narrow 

 aperture arising from the imperfect closure of the two parts of the 

 tongue, may give rise to the sound. This is practically the later view of 

 Landois, who writes in his " Tierstimmen" : "The moth possesses in 

 the front part of the abdomen, close before the true belly, a ' saugblase ' 

 [sucking-bladder], which is tensely filled with air, and opens out into 

 the end of the food-channel, through which it stands in connection with 

 the mouth ; as the two halves of the proboscis, which are inbent 

 towards one another, do not entirely close together at the front sur- 

 face, a fine groove or cleft is formed in the middle of the upper 

 side of the proboscis, which (cleft) leads into the mouth immediately 

 below the upper lip ; this groove or cleft is very securely and 

 " airtightly ; ' surrounded by the horny upper part of the proboscis, 

 and, in consequence of this arrangement, there originates a small 

 sound-orifice formed by the groove of the proboscis and the upper 

 lip." He states that, "even if only a small amount of air be driven by the 

 disturbed moth out of the pressed-together ' saugblase ' through this 

 opening, there arises the well-known half-piping and half-chirping sound. 

 He states that the proof of the correctness of this view is as follows : 

 If one presses on the front part of the abdomen, the moth remains 

 unable, so long as the pressure lasts, to produce the sound, and the 

 like is the case if one in any way stops up the sound-orifice, or forms 

 further a horizontal side-orifice. The sound leaves off as soon as 

 one injures or destroys any organ important to its production, e.g., 

 the extremely small upper lip." Landois further states that it is 

 possible to force air into the freshly-dead moth by way of the tongue, 

 when the body will swell out and the sound * be continued so 



* As tending to discredit this view, Aigner-Abah states (III. Zeits. fur Ent., 

 i y -> P- 33$) lnat half-a-spoonful of honey has been forced from the body of a moth 

 that had been killed by having its head cut off, the head, after separation from the 

 body, squeaking vivaciously. We do not know where this statement was originally 

 made. It may have originated with Taschenberg (posted, p. 450, f.^otnoote), although 

 there is nothing said as 10 the cutting off of the head. At any rate, the actual food- 

 crop is not the air-cavity implicated in the production of the somul, for, as we under- 

 stand the matter, this air-cavity of the head is separate from the alimentary canal, 



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