VOCAL & INSTEUMENTAL MUSIC OF INSECTS. 429 



the thicket of sapling oaks on the banks of Loch Fyne after dusk 

 were toying in the fashion of the Swallows on the china plate, 

 and one, or both, was clicking its make-believe kisses. We could 

 imagine these moths are not deaf ; they possess ventral cavities 

 at the junction of the abdomen and thorax that may be adapted 

 for audition. By nature indolent, somnolent, and apathetic, it 

 is surprising they have so much life in them. If the birds learnt 

 to sing beside the pebbly brook, they are surely trying to imitate 

 the chirpings of the verdant, vernal groves, which poets assure 

 us " are ever full of song and full of love." 



Many of the males of the lichen-dappled, mouse-coloured 

 Noctuina, branded with their family heraldry of lines, kidney, 

 orb, and dart, are consummate dandies, with an extensible fan 

 on a fleshy arm at the base of the hind body, which, when it 

 expands, scatters on the dusky air a fragrance of turpentine or 

 the vinaigrette. From the information afforded by Mr. F. N. 

 Pierce, in his laborious work on the genitalia of the Noctuidce, 

 added to my own very partial investigations, I conclude these 

 hair-pencils are possessed by the male of the quadrifid Mania 

 maura, sometimes called the " old lady," that flies, dismal and 

 black, into the apartment that overlooks the willows ; by that of 

 the "angle shades" {Phlogophora meticulosa), whose green cater- 

 pillar eats the garden fennel, and by those of the " sharks " 

 (Cucullia verbasci and umbratica), that hide in the herbage. 

 They are possessed by the males of the " wainscots," veiny, 

 straw-coloured, or purplish, that, when the twilight darkens, are 

 all on a nutter over the flowering grasses of the marshland ; 

 those of Leucania conigera, lithargyria, littoralis, vitellina, pollens, 

 albipuncta, l-album, straminea, extranea, obsoleta, and congrua are 

 all provided with them, as are those of their near of kin, Nojia- 

 gria dissoluta, Caradrina brevilinea, and others. One of this 

 group, Leucania loreyi, is widely distributed; they rarely have 

 the Noctuina pattern distinct. Scent fans at the base of the 

 abdomen are possessed by the males of certain moths, some- 

 times a canary-colour, that fly to lights in shady avenues ; 

 those of Orthosia aurago and flavago, ypsilon, lota, macilenta, and 

 pistacina ; and the males of Caradriua subtusa and Conistra ery- 

 throcephala thus secure a partner. So, too, do the males of a group 

 coloured like the bark of the tree-trunks on which they slumber 



