VOCAL ¢& INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF INSECTS. 385 
says that at the end of the autumn of 1836 he saw Ammophila 
sabulosa busy making a hole in the sand on the banks of the 
Rhone, and at the same time producing a continuous sound 
resembling that made by Syritta pipiens, with its wings in 
seeming repose ; and Solier asserts that Sphex arenaria utters a 
ery each time it deposits its burden. If not spiracular, it is 
possible the piping of these Sand Wasps is made by the friction 
of the shagreened edges of the ventral plates of the abdomen 
which are overlapped by the dorsal. 
Strolling over the cliffs of Sangatte, on the French coast, in 
the summer of 1876, when borings were made there for the con- 
struction of a Channel Tunnel, I used to see the little black 
Dasypoda hirtipes curled up asleep like a chimney sweep in the 
yellow composite flowers, brushes and all. Once I picked one of 
the blossoms and brought it, with the bee cradled inside, indoors, 
and placed it on the table; the bee, who was enjoying its highest 
sense of delight, never offered to move, and on being dislodged 
by accident coolly crawled back and tucked itself in again. On 
the 14th of July, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastile, 
at a quarter to eight in the morning, these somnolent bees 
celebrated their nuptial dance, consisting in a series of short 
aerial darts close to the ground against the briny air that blew, 
and then the females, proving the heavier, they were the first to 
desist and regain their favourite blossom, or fall plump on the 
earth, seeing which the males darted down, and the couples 
rolled over and over in the dust, or sometimes, by some strange 
mistake, three were thus seen engaged in hot contention. When 
coupled they maintained a “‘ pip-piping!” as if they were com- 
memorating their nuptials with the flute. It must have been 
about this time that the Curé of the village appeared on the 
scene with a man and wheelbarrow, in order to demonstrate that 
there was a seam of limestone containing fresh-water shells on 
the seaward face of the cliff. He afterwards took me to call on 
the doctor, who had unearthed the bones of a stranded Whale, 
but we found the house shut up and the doctor absent. The 
recent topography of the sandy plain at Calais, where the corn- 
fields are gay with poppies and bluebottles, is historically inte- 
resting. According to geologists the bed of the Channel has 
sunk down, and the beach at Sangatte is strewn with peat-balls 
