“That the males of some Diptera fight together is certain; for Professor
Westwood has several times seen this with the Tipulæ. The males of other
Diptera apparently try to win the females by their music: H. Müller
watched for some time two males of an Eristalis courting a female; they
hovered above her, and flew from side to side, making a high humming
noise at the same time. Gnats and mosquitoes (Culicidæ) also seem to
attract each other by humming; and Professor Mayer has recently
ascertained that the hairs on the antennæ of the male vibrate in unison
with the notes of a tuning-fork, within the range of the sounds emitted
by the female.”
In the crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts, the males “are remarkable
for their musical powers”; and it is generally assumed that the sounds
serve to call or to excite the female. In these forms the noise is made
by rubbing the wings over each other or the legs against the
wing-covers.
In some of these forms both sexes have stridulating organs, and in one
case they differ to a certain extent from each other. “Hence we cannot
suppose that they have been transferred from the male to the female, as
appears to have been the case with the secondary sexual characters of
many other animals. They must have been independently developed in the
two sexes, which no doubt mutually call to each other during the season
of love.”
Some beetles also possess rasping organs in different parts of the body,
but they cannot produce much noise by this means.
“We thus see that in the different coleopterous families the
stridulating organs are wonderfully diversified in position, but not
much in structure. Within the same family some species are provided with
these organs, and others are destitute of them. 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. Some beetles
as they move, now produce, either intentionally or unintentionally, a
shuffling noise, without possessing any proper organs for the purpose.”
Darwin says that he expected from analogy to find in this group also
differences in the sexes, but none such were found, although in some
cases the males alone possess certain characters or have them more
highly developed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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