VOCAL &¢ INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF INSECTS. 383 
once brought me a Tibicina hematodes in a wicker-cage from 
Toulouse; it was a female and voiceless. Where the vine basks 
on the sunny banks at Toulouse, Solier showed experimentally 
that the music of hematodes was a “‘tom-toming”’ of kettle- 
drums. The primary distinction in the singing of Cicada is 
between those which perform with exposed or muffled kettle- 
drums—that of the cryptotympanic ending in an expiration that 
has been compared to the rush of a waterfall. Henry Walter 
Bates says, in the account of his trip up the River Amazon, that 
in the month of September the howling of Monkeys and screech- 
ing of the Parrots was accompanied by the songs of strange 
Cicadas; one large kind, which was more numerous up the 
river than at its mouth, perched high on the trees, set up a 
piercing chirp, which began with the usual harsh jarring tone 
that became rapidly shriller, and terminated in a long and loud 
note which resembled the steam-whistle of a locomotive. Half 
a dozen of these performers made a considerable item in the 
evening concert. 
Foremost of the Fossorial Hymenoptera come the Solitary 
Ants, clad in prettily banded fur, whose female is apterous. 
These are met with perambulating sandy places, or, with other 
strange mimics, are dislodged from the nests of ‘‘ Bumbles.” 
They pass their lives among sticks and straws, and on the fore 
edge of the second joint of their hind body there is a protuberance 
with a file, with which, when seized, they make a soft sand- 
papery sound, indicating their resentment—a rattlesnake warn- 
ing, sometimes followed by the infliction of a sharp sting. To 
these the little wasp-like species of Crabro, it is said, are 
distantly related; but what is singular, the fore wings of the 
Solitary Ants are veined like those of the ‘‘ Bumbles,” and those 
of the Crabros are widely different. This for the specialist and 
evolutionist to puzzle over: the male of Crabro cribrarius, 
who shows a kind of gauntlet on his fore legs resembling that of 
the fussy water-beetles in order to roughly seize its female, has 
always had the popularity conceded to the highwayman; and 
now the female of the large-headed, great-brained C. cephalodes 
is ready to ingratiate herself. I found the little hussy disporting 
on a cowparsnip-head at Totnes towards the end of July, when 
cowparsnips are in bloom, and placed her in a large glass jar 
