392 NOISES OF INSECTS. 
a similar remark with respect to another bug (Reduvius 
personatus, F.), the cry of which he compares to the 
chirping of agrasshopper*. Mutilla europea, a hymen- 
opterous insect, makes a sibilant chirping, as I once 
observed at Southwold, where it abounds ; but how pro- 
duced I cannot say. The most remarkable noise, how- 
ever, proceeding from insects under alarm, is that emit- 
ted by the death’s-head hawk-moth, and for which it has 
long been celebrated. The Lepidoptera, though some of 
them, as we have seen, produce a sound when they fly, 
at other times are usually mute insects: but this alarm- 
ist—for so it may be called, from the terrors which it 
has occasioned to the superstitious *—when it walks, and 
more particularly when it is confined, or taken into the 
hand, sends forth a strong and sharp cry, resembling that 
of a mouse, but more plaintive, and even lamentable, 
which it continues as long as it isheld. This cry does 
not appear to be produced by the wings; for when they, 
as well as the thorax and abdomen, are held down, the 
cries of the insect become still louder. Schroeter says 
that the animal, when it utters its cry, rubs its tongue 
against its head*; and Rosel, that it produces it by the 
friction of the thorax and abdomen’. But Reaumur 
found, after the most attentive examination, that the cry 
came from the mouth, or rather from the tongue; and he 
thought that it was produced by the friction of the palpi 
against that organ. When, by means of a pin, he un- 
folded the spiral tongue, the cry ceased; but as soon as 
it was rolled up again between the palpi it was renewed, 
He next prevented the palpi from touching it, and the 
a Hist. Ins. 56. > Vor. J. 4th Ed. 34, 
© Naturforscher Stk. xxi. 77. “ TIT. 16. 
