12 
bv) when taken were put alive into a boxj during their 
confinement together, the male attacked the female and 
nearly devoured one side of her. This is the reverse of a 
fact recorded from Mr. Dorthes by Dr. Smith in the first 
volume of his Tour, (p. 162 ,) of an insect of the same or- 
der, Mantis religiosa. In this instance, after union the 
female devoured the male. Male Spiders also, as Entomo- 
logists who have attended to their ways relate, at the same 
period are obliged to make their escape with the utmost 
velocity from the murderous fangs of their female partners ; 
who, if they did not, would destroy them without mercy. 
How Crickets produce the uncommon loud noise which 
they make, seems not certainly ascertained ; Mouffet sup- 
poses it to be the attrition of their wings, and says that a 
friend of his, James Garret, an apothecary, produced the 
same sound by taking off their wings and rubbing them 
against each other. We suspect it to be by the attrition of 
the abdomen against the thorax, having observed that the 
common Grasshopper, when it chirps, vibrates its abdomen 
with great quickness ; and when the noise ceases, this mo- 
tion ceases with it. Scopoli says, if this Cricket be intro- 
duced into a house, it will drive away the House Cricket. 
Mr. Curtis and Mr. Sowerby have frequently seen the 
common green Locust, at Battersea, evidently produce this 
noise by the attrition of the shoulder of one wing against 
that of the other. 
Mr. Sowerby ’s son has observed a small species of Grass- 
hopper, on the Downs at Yarmouth, to produce a noise by 
the rubbing of the rough spines on the wings of that species 
against the spines of the hinder iegs. This he has fre- 
quently performed on many of the smaller species. 
Scarabaei produce a certain noise by the forcing of air 
through the respiratory pores of the abdomen. Different 
insects, and even insects of the same genus, may have dif- 
ferent modes of producing their peculiar sounds. 
