Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 27, 2025
He stated that a locust not weighing more than half a pennyweight, and that could not move an ounce weight, was supposed capable of setting 4 cubic miles of atmosphere into vibration, weighing 120,000,000 tons, so that it would be displaced 440 times in one second, and any portion of the air could bend the human tympanic membrane once in and once out 440 times in one second; and that 40,000,000 people, nearly the whole population of the United States, could have their 5,000 pounds of tympanic membrane thus shaken by an insect that could not move an ounce weight to save its life; and that the 231,222 pounds of tympanic membrane of the entire population of the earth, amounting to 1,350,000,000, who could conveniently stand in 11¼ square miles, would be affected the same way by 34 locusts stridulating in the air.
He then showed that there was not the slightest similarity between the theoretical sound waves and water waves, and still they are spoken of as "precisely similar" and "essentially identical," and "move in exactly the same way." Considerable merriment was occasioned when Dr. Mott showed what a locust stridulating in the air would be called upon to do if the present theory of sound were correct.
Landois has observed another important fact, namely, that in the females of the Acridiidae, the stridulating teeth on the femora remain throughout life in the same condition in which they first appear during the larval state in both sexes.
Dawson, they show a remarkable union of characters now found in distinct orders of insects, or constitute what have been named "synthetic types." Of this kind is a stridulating or musical apparatus like that of the cricket in an insect otherwise allied to the Neuroptera. This structure, as Dr. Dawson observes, if rightly interpreted by Mr.
Leisurely and tantalizingly he put back the chalk and studied the easy shot which was all that stood between him and victory, between Birralong and bankruptcy; and another hum, half curse, half gasp, travelled round the room and out of the open doors and windows, out to where the countless myriads of hungry, stridulating insects sung and chirped and buzzed, careless of the human anguish pent up so near them, careless of everything, as they strained their senses in search of something green.
From the analogy of the Orthoptera and Homoptera, I expected to find the stridulating organs in the Coleoptera differing according to sex; but Landois, who has carefully examined several species, observed no such difference; nor did Westring; nor did Mr. G.R. Crotch in preparing the many specimens which he had the kindness to send me.
In the Locustidae the same members have a sloping position on each side of the body, and do not overlap, except to a small extent near their bases; it is out of this small portion that the stridulating organ is contrived. Greater resonance is given in most species by a thin transparent plate, covered by a membrane, in the centre of the overlapping lobes.
This diversity is intelligible, if we suppose that originally various beetles made a shuffling or hissing noise by the rubbing together of any hard and rough parts of their bodies, which happened to be in contact; and that from the noise thus produced being in some way useful, the rough surfaces were gradually developed into regular stridulating organs.
Insects and some few spiders are the lowest animals which voluntarily produce any sound; and this is generally effected by the aid of beautifully constructed stridulating organs, which are often confined to the males. Dr. Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist. vol. xi. The chief and, in some cases, exclusive purpose appears to be either to call or charm the opposite sex.
'Transactions, Entomological Society, 3rd series, vol. ii. This naturalist has lately found a fossil insect in the Devonian formation of New Brunswick, which is furnished with "the well-known tympanum or stridulating apparatus of the male Locustidae."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking