Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904New York State College of Agriculture
History
Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904
New York State College of Agriculture
Natural history; Nature study
As the night wears on, the color of our hero changes and his wings
harden; until when the sun rises we behold him in the glory of a black
uniform with facings of orange and with beautiful glassy wings folded
roof-like above his body. (Fig. 339.) Great is the change wrought in his
appearance during this one marvelous night, and greater still the change
wrought in his habits! He is now no longer a hermit; there are thousands
of his kind about him, a fact which he realizes with great joy. So happy
is he that he feels as if he must burst if he does not find some
adequate means for expressing his happiness in this beautiful world of
sunshine. Then suddenly he finds in himself the means of expression and
bursts into song. Yet, it is not a song exactly, for he is a drummer
rather than a singer. On his body just behind each of his hind wings is
a kettle drum. The head to this drum is of parchment thrown into folds
and may be seen with a lens if you lift his wings and look closely.
(Fig. 340.) Instead of drum sticks he uses a pair of strong muscles to
throw the membranes into vibration and there is a complex arrangement of
cavities and sounding boards around these drum heads so that the noise
he gives off is a great one indeed for a fellow of his size. So fond is
he of making music that he has no time to eat or to do aught else but to
sound fanfares all the sunshiny day. He is not the only musician on the
tree; there are many others and they all join in a swelling chorus that
has been described as a roar like that made by the "rushing of a strong
wind through the trees."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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