382 NOISES OF INSECTSs 
might occasion the sound, Upon this, cutting both off, 
he examined the mutilated fly with a microscope, and 
found that the remaining fragments of the wings were in 
constant motion all the time that the buzzing continued ; 
but that upon pulling them up by the roots all sound 
ceased*. Shelver’s experiments, noticed in my last let- 
ter, go to prove, with respect to the insects that he 
examined, that the winglets are more particularly con- 
cerned with the buzzing. Upon cutting off the wings 
of a fly—but he does not state that he pulled them up 
by the roots—he found the sound continued. He next 
cut off the poisers—the buzzing went on. ‘This experi- 
ment was repeated eighteen times with the same result. 
Lastly, when he took off the winglets, either wholly or 
partially, the buzzing ceased. ‘This, however, if correct, 
can only be a cause of this noise in the insects that have 
winglets. Numbers have them not. He next, therefore, 
cut off the poisers of a crane-fly (Zipula crocata, L.), 
and found that it buzzed when it moved the wing. He 
cut off half the latter, yet still the sound continued; but 
when he had cut off the whole.of these organs the sound 
entirely ceased”. 
Aristophanes in his Clouds, deriding Socrates, intro- 
duces Chzrephon as asking that philosopher whether 
gnats made their buz with their mouth or their tail*. 
Upon which Mouffet very gravely observes, that the 
sound of one of these insects approaching is much more 
acute than that of one retiring; from whence he very 
sapiently concludes, that not the tail but the mouth 
must be their organ of sound‘. But after all, the fric- 
@ De Geer, vi. 13. > Wiedemann’s Archiv, ii, 210. 217. 
© Act. i. Se. 2. 4 Mouffet, 8]. 
