1913] 
Burrill, The Giant Midge, Chironomus plumosus. 
145 
strated to them that they were not!” Owing to the lack of water¬ 
falls in the vicinity of these observations, I have likened the hum¬ 
ming to an exaggerated singing of telephone wires as the more 
available comparison, without an outfit of tuning forks to make 
an exact record (Miall & Hammond, 1900, 96-9 and 183-4). 
Burmeister, circa 1832, was among the first to note the noise of 
flies made during flight, Westwood (1840, 496) quoting him from 
Taylor’s Sci. Memoir, pt. 3. The first scientific account is perhaps 
that of Baron C. R. Osten Sacken in 1861 (quoted by Knab, 1906, 
132), but I do not find that any one has before connected the 
American plumosus definitely with this musical habit. This has 
been done in Germany by Schuster (1904, 344) who compares the 
sound to “a loud humming noise as is made by swarming bees.” 
The antennal sounding board, as we may call the sound-receptive 
forks of the much-branched antennae and their basal organs, is 
touched on by Child (1894) and Miall & Hammond (1900, 96-9, 
183-4)- 
ENEMIES OF THE GIANT MIDGE. 
Birds .—On the way to Oshkosh every one remarked the thou¬ 
sands of midges, all one species so far as my sight could discover, 
covering the trees, fences,, mail boxes, plowed ground, and even 
the dusty road along Lake Winnebago, like a mantle of brown 
debris, as all-pervading as dust or winter snow. For a few days 
previous to March 28, 1889, similar overwhelming swarms in 
Iowa of the little gnat C. nigricans are reported by Riley (1889, 
351; quoted by Tutt, 1902, 106), so that plumosus is not unique 
in this respect, the former “coming from the Mississippi and form¬ 
ing in the air in immense clouds, covering everything with which 
they come in contact.” Likewise, Tutt (1902, 107) reports accounts 
of C. lugubris (not Williston, 1896?) in March, 1852, all over the 
district about the railway station at Leyden (?) and of C. occul- 
tans Meig. (—lugubris Fries.) along a quay for more than a 
quarter of an hour’s walk,” London ( ?). 
Some miles from the last camping ground of the troop, we 
began to notice the many swallows coming towards us along the 
fields neaiy the lake, slowly advancing and busily feeding in the 
fields and flying low over all the country as they do on cloudy days. 
Three different flocks of these swallows must have numbered into 
