BIRDS AND ALL NATURE. 
ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. 
Vol. IV. NOVEMBER, 1898. No. 5 
NATURE'S ORCHESTRA. 
ftLL nature is attuned to music. 
Man may seek the fields, the 
forests, the mountains, and the 
meadows, to escape • from 
distracting noises of the city, but no- 
where, not even in the depths of moun- 
tain forests, will he find absolute 
silence. And well for him that it is so, 
for should no noise, no vibration of the 
air greet his accustomed ear, so appall- 
ing would be the dead silence that he 
would flee from it as from the grave. 
Even the Bugs make music. They 
may not be much as vocalists but they 
take part in nature's symphony with 
the brook, the Bird, and the deep dia- 
pason of the forest monarch swaying 
and humming to the gusts of the way- 
ward wind. It is true that the great 
majority of our species of insects are 
silent, and those which do make sounds, 
have not true voices, breathing as they 
do through holes arranged along each 
side of their body, and not through 
their mouths, they naturally possess no 
such arrangement for making noises 
connected with breathing as we find in 
the human larynx. 
The "buzzing Fly" and "droning 
Bee" are classed among nature's mu- 
sicians, as well as the Cicadas, Grass- 
hoppers, Crickets, Locusts, Katydids, 
and Beetles. Only the males are the mu- 
sicians in the insect families — with the 
exception of the Mosquito, the lady be- 
ing the musical member of that family 
— and the different kinds of Grasshop- 
pers are provided with an elaborate 
musical apparatus by means of which 
they call their mates. 
Chief among the insect performers is 
the Cicada, often confused with the Lo- 
cust, though he does not belong to that 
family at all, who possesses a pair of 
complicated kettle-drums, which he 
plays with his muscles instead of sticks. 
Directly behind the base of each hind 
leg is a circular plate of about one- 
quarter of an inch in diameter. Be- 
neath each of these is a cavity across 
which is stretched a partition of three 
membranes. At the top is a stiff, folded 
membrane, which acts as a drum-head. 
Upon this he plays with his muscles, 
the vibrations being so rapid that to 
the ears of some listeners the noise, or 
music he engenders, sounds more like 
that of a mandolin than a drum. He is 
a black fellow with dull green scroll 
work over his thick body, lives in 
trees, and is generally invisible when 
he plays the drum. 
The Grasshopper is the fiddler of the 
great orchestra, and the hotter the day 
the more energetically does he fiddle. 
The fellow with the short horns has a 
rough hind leg which he uses as a bow; 
this he draws across the wing cover, 
giving off the notes which he so dearly 
loves. Near the base of each fore wing 
is a peculiar arrangement of veins and 
cells. This arrangement differs in the 
different species, but in each it is such 
that by rubbing the fore wings together 
they are made to vibrate, and thus, 
some naturalists aver, they make the 
sounds which we hear. 
The most easily observed of all 
insect musicians are the common 
Crickets. By placing a sod of growing 
grass in a cage with several male crick- 
ets, you can watch them play upon 
their fiddles. Upon the lower side of 
their wings you will see ridges like 
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