494 NOISES OF INSECTS. 
might. Hive-bees when irritated emit a shrill and peevish sound, con. 
tinuing even when they are held under water, which John Hunter says 
vibrates at the point of contact with the air-holes at the root of their 
wings.t. This sound is particularly sharp and angry when they fly at an 
intruder. The same sounds, or very similar ones, tell us when a wasp is 
offended, and we may expect to be stung;—but this passion of anger in 
insects is so nearly connected with their fear that I need not enlarge further 
upon it. 
oticenning their shouts of joy and cries of sorrow I have little to re- 
cord: that pleasure or pain makes a difference in the tones of vocal 
insects is not improbable; but our auditory organs are not fine enough 
to catch all their different modulations. When Schirach had once smoked 
a hive to oblige the bees to retire to the top of it, the queen with some of 
the rest flew away. Upon this, those that remained in the hive sent forth 
a most plaintive sound, as if they were all deploring their loss ; when their 
sovereign was restored to them, these lugubrious sounds were succeeded by 
an agreeable humming, which announced their joy at the event.? Huber 
relates, that once, when all the worker-brood was removed from a hive, 
and only male brood left, the bees appeared in a state of extreme despon- 
dency. Assembled in clusters upon the combs, they lost all their activity. 
The queen dropped her eggs at random ; and instead of the usual active 
hum, a dead silence reigned in the hive.* 
But /ove is the soul of song with those that may be esteemed the most 
musical insects, the grasshopper tribes (Gry/lina and Locustina), and the 
long celebrated Cicada. ou would suppose, perhaps, that the ladies 
would bear their share in these amatory strains. But here you would be 
mistaken —female insects are too intent upon their business, too coy and 
reserved to tell their loye even to the winds.—the males alone 
“Formosam resonare docent Amaryllida sylvas.” 
With respect to the Cicad@, this was observed by Aristotle ; and Pliny, 
as usual, has retailed it after him.t The observation also holds good 
with respect to the Gryllina, &c., and other insects, probably, whose love 
is musical. Olivier, however, has noticed an exception to this doctrine ; 
for he relates, that in a species of beetle (JMoluris striata), the female has a 
round granulated spot in the middle of the second segment of the abdomen, 
by striking which against any hard substance, she produces a rather loud 
sound, and that the male, obedient to this call, soon attends her, and they 
pair. Both sexes, also, in the genus Lphippiger, separated by Latreille 
from Acrida, and characterised as being without wings and with very short 
wing-coyers, are musical (?).° 
As I have nothing to communicate to you with respect to the love-songs 
1 In Philos. Trans. 1792, This fact strongly confirms Dr. Burmeister’s experi- 
ments before related, showing that the humming of bees, as of flies, is caused not by 
the wings, but by the action of the air on the Iaminw of the thoracic spiracles as 
there described, 
2 Schirach, 738. 5 i, 226. 
4 Aristot. Hist. Anim. 1. v. c. 80. Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. xi, ¢. 26. 
5 Oliv. Zntomol. i. Pref. ix. 
Palade Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, vi, 81, and translation in Entom. Mag. 
v. 98. 
