2 
THE WHISTLING MOTH. 
the special noise emitted by Hecatesia fenestrata had been 
noticed, and the special mechanism connected with its production 
pointed out ; although this fact has escaped the notice of more 
recent writers on entomological subjects, not excepting Hagen, 
untd that keen observer, the late Henry Edwards, visited Aus- 
tralia in 1889, and afterwards recorded, in “ Insect Life,” vol. 
ii., his personal observations. The remarks H. Edwards makes 
are of such interest that no apology is needed for their being 
incorporated in this note. He writes concerning H. fenestrata : 
During my residence in Australia I was collecting insects in 
the Plenty Ranges, about twenty miles from Melbourne, and in 
the burning heat of midday sun had sat down to rest and pin 
my cajitures under the shade of a thick acacia tree. I was 
astonished, and almost startled, at a peculiar sound apparently 
very near me, which was unlike anything I had ever heard, and 
which I at first thought was the voice of some unfamiliar bird. 
I listened attentively, looking in the direction of the noise, but 
could see nothing. I took up my net and walked up the opening 
in the woods, the sound still continuing, and greatly exciting my 
curiosity. It was very loud and distinct, and not unlike ‘ Whiz 
whiz ’ repeated by the mouth with the teeth closed. I had pro- 
ceeded about thirty yards when the noise suddenly stopped. I 
sat down and waited, thinking I should again hear it and be 
able to trace it to its source. I was not disappointed, for in a 
few minutes it again appeared, and this time quite close to me. 
looked very carefully, and in an opening, buzzing about with a 
swaying lateral motion, were two or three insects, which at 
first sight I took to be some species of Hymenoptera. I gave 
a sweep with my net and made a capture, which was .soon within 
my collecting bottle. My heart beat violently, as I found that 
I had taken a lovely black and orange moth such as I had never 
e 01 e seen. The structure by which the insect is enabled to 
produce the singular and striking sound is the thickening of the 
costal membrane about the apical third, behind which and 
ve Mv ^erve, this space being trans- 
orthoptera bundles of eggs in some species of 
ot piolonged club, pointed at the extreme end, and with the 
