VOCAL ¢ INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF INSECTS. 389 
Merodon also hum when they couple.” In these cases it is 
natural to suppose that the flies hold sweet converse, and that 
they possess an attentive ear. The strangest courtship is that 
of Dolichopus nobilitatis, which I witnessed in a wet meadow near 
Maida Hill, in London; the female sat drinking on a puddle, 
and the male took flying leaps in quick succession around her 
head. I depicted the scene in my ‘Insect Variety.’ 
The minute Syritta pipiens, with thick hind thighs, that 
nestles in the dandelion-flower at the side of the hedge, when 
seized by a passer-by, intimates its resentment in a cry of ‘ pip- 
peep!’ whence its specific nickname. The bluebottie fies—for 
there are two in the kitchen, one has red cheeks and the other 
a red beard—when caught in a spider’s web, throw the wing that 
is free into vibration, and whine piteously. 
On the 15th of June, 1874, the weather, which in Perthshire 
had been bitterly cold, grew milder; I then arrived with my 
relatives at Comrie, where mice afflicted with a kind of croup 
might be heard squealing on the damp spots, ‘‘ whit-wee-wee- 
wee-way!’’ They were whistling at noon and whistling at ten 
o'clock at night, when the moths were fluttering about in the 
bushes. On the 16th I visited St. Fillans to see certain wych- 
elms mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, which did not grow there, 
but I heard-a hover fly whining loud in a sunny hedge, and, pro- 
ceeding to the spot, I found it struggling with a sulphur-belted 
sawfly. Icaptured both and placed them in a box covered with 
gauze, when the fly crouched at the bottom and continued its 
plaintive cry, while the bee walked about on the gauze with 
circumspection ; but a few seconds had elapsed when in an after- 
thought it darted down and decapitated the fly. These notes 
seem to indicate fear or resentment ; it would be curious to know 
how they influenced the actions of the spider or sawfly. 
