454 General Notes. [July, 
Animat Music (Am. Nar., April, 1879).—The song of the 
chickadee is given in but two notes, although the name is derived 
from five syllables—chick-a-dee-dee-dee. Mr. Nuttall was a close 
observer of the song of birds, but contented himself with noting 
only the syllabism. “The music of birds differs in form and pitch, 
as in that of the Baltimore oriole or hang-nest, given by me in 
the American Naturatist ‘with the note of the bull-frog, Jan., 
che p. 234), as compared with that cited by Mr. Clark (api 
879, p. 222). Gardiner gives nine examples of the song of t 
English throstle in five keys (Music of Nature, pp. 59, hree 
225, 344, 454), fourteen of ee European blackbird in Pine keys 
. (pp. 59, 76, 130, 140, 162, 434), = — equally scattered and 
difficult to compare.—S. $ Halden 
SHEDDING OF THE TRACHEÆ IN THE MOLTING OF INSECTS.— 
While dissecting out the spiracles from the last casting of the 
larval skin of one of our common silk moths (B. mori), I remarked 
that parts of the trachea remained attached to them. To con- 
firm this observation, I opened a number of cocoons of the ordi- 
nary silk worm, which chanced to be in my possession, and 
placing the shriveled cast skins found in them in potash water, 
left them for several days to soak and soften. I then succeeded 
in spreading them out sufficiently to exhibit, attached to each 
spiracle, a great bunch of tracheal vessels of varying sizes lying 
parallel, as though they had been drawn out through single open- 
ings in the body of the larva. While I cannot be sure that all 
the finer branches of this tracheal system were present in these 
bunches, the larger tubes certainly were, and the smaller may 
readily have been ‘detached and lost in the processes of prepara- 
tion or broken off and left as dead matter in the body. The fact 
is clear that in the shedding of the last latval skin at least the 
tracheal vessels remain attached and are removed with it. When 
we think of the trachea as portions of the ectoderm or outer layer 
or skin of the insect, this coincident removal seems only natural 
and to be expected; but the fact is none the less curious, ‘nor its 
. process more easy to comprehend. Are these vessels with all 
their ramifications withdrawn from the interior of the larva before 
the formation of the pupal skin with its spiracles and trachea? 
if so, is there not a pitting during which the insect is with- 
out effective respiratory or 
When the pupa changes catty the imago, the same fact is ob- 
served. Here also the trachea, of much “smaller athe ae than 
in the former case, are found within the empty pupa s hen 
does the imago as such begin to breathe with its own proper 
organs? When it bursts its mummy-like cerements and shakes 
out its new found wings in this fourth condition of its existence, 
is there a new birth in this respect also, that it Do at pe 
moment to breathe in its higher life 2— Edward Potts 
es ie of the trachez has been noticed by me in the larva of the humble- 
bees. e Proceedings Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., x, 283, 1866.—A. S. P., Fr- 
