890 NOISES OF INSECTS. 
method are absolutely mute; on which account the bees 
keep no guard around their cells, nor retain them an in- 
stant in them after their transformation?. 
The passions, also, which urge us to various exclama-. 
tions, elicit from insects occasionally certain sounds. 
Fear, anger, sorrow, joy, or love and desire, they ex- 
press in particular instances by particular noises. I 
shall begin with those which they emit when under any 
alarm. One larva only is recorded as uttering a cry of 
alarm, and it produces a perfect insect remarkable for 
the same faculty: I allude to Sphinx Atropos. Its ca- 
terpillar, if disturbed at all, draws back rapidly, making 
at the same time a rather loud noise, which has been 
compared to the crack of an electric spark>,—You would 
scarcely think that any quiescent pup@ could show their 
fears by a sound,—yet in one instance this appears to 
be the case. De Geer having made a small incision in 
the cocoon of a moth, which included that of its parasite 
Ichneumon (I. Cantator, De G.), the insect concealed 
within the latter uttered a little cry, similar to the chirp- 
ing of a small grasshopper, continuing it for a long time 
together. The sound was produced by the friction of 
its body against the elastic substance of its own cocoon, 
and was easily imitated by rubbing a knife against its 
surface. 
But to come to perfect insects. Many beetles when 
taken show their alarm by the emission of a shrill, sibi- 
lant, or creaking sound—which some compare to the 
chirping of young birds—produced by rubbing their 
elytra with the extremity of their abdomen. ‘This is the 
case with the dung-chafers (Scarabeus vernalis, stercora- 
* Huber, 1. 292— > Fuessl. Archiv.8.10. © De Geer, vii. 594. 
