Some Insects Talk by Vibrating Their
Wings, Others Stridulate, and Others
Emit Sounds from the Thorax.
Insects, like birds and animals, have their calls. But the sounds they
produce include the rubbing together of their limbs or wing covers and the
vibration of their wings, so they cannot always be spoken of as voices.
For that matter, when man knocks at a door, or rings a bell, or snaps his
fingers to attract the attention of a waiter, he is communicating by other
than spoken sounds--as is also the case when he uses the telegraph. Says
an old exchange:
Flies and bees undoubtedly mean something when they hum
louder or lower. Landoise has calculated that to produce the
sound of F by vibrating its wings, they vibrate 352 times a
second, and the bee to create A vibrates 440 times a second.
A tired bee hums on E sharp. This change is perhaps
involuntary, but undoubtedly at the command of the will, and
is similar to the voice.
When seeking honey a bee hums to A sharp.
Landoise noticed three different tones emitted by insects--a
low one during flight, a higher one when the wings are held
so that they cannot vibrate, and a higher one yet when the
insect is held so that none of his limbs can be moved. This
last is of course the voice proper of insects and is
produced by the stigmata of the thorax.
No music is as familiar as that produced by the locusts,
grasshoppers, and crickets, and, although they are not
produced by the mouth, they answer as calls, and are
undoubtedly a language to a certain extent, and indeed their
calls have been reduced to written music.
The music of grasshoppers is produced in four different
ways, according to Scudder. First, by rubbing the base of
one wing upon the other, using for that purpose veins
running through the middle portion of the wing; second, by a
similar method, by using the veins of the inner part of the
wing; by rubbing the inner surface of the hind legs against
the outer surface of the wing covers; and, fourth, by
rubbing together the upper surface of the front edge of the
wings and the under surface of the wing covers. The insects
which employ the fourth method also stridulate during night.
The first method is used by the crickets, the second by the
green or long-legged grasshoppers, the third and fourth by
certain kinds of short-horned or jumping grasshoppers.
Butterflies have been heard to utter a loud click, and the
same is true of many beetles; while the cicada, or
seventeen-year locust, utters a most remarkable note or
series of sounds.
Spiders have often been heard to utter sounds. John
Burroughs says in his "Pepacton," that one sunny April day
his attention was attracted by a soft, uncertain, purring
sound made by little spiders that were running over the dry
leaves.