228 
THE LADIES MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
derable chance of obtaining new and improved varieties from seeds ; if any 
lady would take the trouble of trying the experiment, we might have a 
chance of seeing the daisy in as great perfection and obtaining as much 
notice as the pansy. 
Birmingham, 
June 16^, 1841. 
HUMMING IN THE AIR. 
BY MR. MAIN. 
Nothing arrests the attention of a visitor to the open country downs 
or commons in the summer months more than the general humming in the 
air so beautifully alluded to by our elegant poet Thomson in the following 
lines :— 
“ Resounds the living surface of the ground ; 
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum , 
To him who muses through the woods at noon ; 
Or drowsy shepherd, as he lies reclined, 
With half-shut eyes, beneath the floating shade 
Of willows grey, close crowding o’er the brook.” 
This rural sound is quite audible, and seems to proceed from every 
quarter at the same time, so that strangers look round in vain for the 
cause of this “ ceaseless hum.” 
Naturalists have accounted for the sound by supposing it to arise from 
the innumerable insects which are everywhere on the wing in warm 
weather ; and that the united buzzing from so many wings is the immediate 
cause of the continuous sound. This idea was for many years entertained 
by the writer, and it was only by accident that he at last discovered the 
true source of the humming in the air. In crossing an open pasture 
between two woods, the general hum was so uncommonly loud that he 
thought a swarm of honey bees was flying overhead. He looked up, but 
saw no bees, but an immense congregation of flesh-flies disporting high in 
the air, and scarcely visible, not only from their height above the ground, 
say fifty yards, but also from the rapidity of their flight, apparently in 
chase of each other. So numerous was the assembly that they formed a 
thin cloud, and to which there was no visible limit either to the right or 
left, before or behind the place of observation. TJlie manner of their thus 
assembling is, no doubt, not confined to these insects; as many others are 
seen to do the same during their short life. Several of the gnat species 
are seen dancing in vertical columns on warm summer evenings, or under 
thick hedges on damp mornings. The tree-beetle, Melolontha arborea , and 
