Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-25

1t is possible, he says, that an ele-
mental Sgotism and love OF noisy self
expression may be the motives, or a
mood OF social contact, or an elemental
impulse of pure art. Sex alone" he
insists, does not explain it, No cricket
needs to chirp himself to death, 1000
600 or 100000 times on one bush, to
win the momentary attentions of a
silent, lonely female in the vicinity.
Here Is the weird mystery of insect
music, its eternal persistence, an eter-
nal wing play in some restless role of
life designed, 1t would seem, to keep
the insect happy and content while 1t
lives along to the very threshold Of
DEATH"
Has Developed Dialects.
While the insect is entirely an in
strumeptalist, DR.. Allard points out, 1t
actually has developed dialects in diff
Thus there Is an observable difference
between the music of katydids of the
same species in New England and in
the District of Columbia.
The scientist is confident that they
have delicate sense of hearing. He
once kept a bush katydid captive in his
bedroom which, he says, would reply
to my lisping mimicry as .often as i
cared to stinulate 1t. In tests with this
katydid I stepped away slowly the en-
tire length Of the room, lisping so low
as barely to hear 1t myself; and yet 1t
heard and promptly responded" The
hearing organs, he says, are on the fore
legs near the knees.
The eternal music of the insects DR..
Ailard attributes to some weird, in
comprehensive mood of consciousness
and self-expreSsion, some inherent, per-
vasive mood that makes all things move
and spin eternally in a round of rest
less play, whether 1t be electrons, pla-
nets or what not in the physical uni
verse"
Some families of insects, ne points
out, have quite complicated the musical
instruments as parts of their bodies Snd
different species are extremely special
lied In their musical technique. Some
appear to have keen sense of time,
while the music Of others seems to
have no time regulation.
Ambitious efforts to learn the smell"
language Of bees, ants and termites
are described by DR.. N E. McIndoo of
advances the theory that the remark
able social organizations of these insects
depend. for their systems of communi-
cation, upon the extremely. fine differ
entiatipn Of odors. BY intensive de-
velopment of his own sense of smell,
DIR. McIndoo says, he was able in a few
months to distinguish queens, drones
and workers merely by smelling them
and also to distinguish the smell of the
hive of the larvae and pupae, Of the
honey, the pollen and the wax.
Special Experiments Devised.
.{Sinoe a human being with greatly
degenerated sense Of smell could make
such 1lne. distinctions, he points out,
the insects themselves must recognize
arhch fner differences. BY means Of
Mdoo reports, 1t was established that
the queen bee gives of a peculiar odor,
that probably all her offspring inherit
a family odor" from her, and each
worker. apparently gives of an odor
which is different from that Of any
other worker.
OF all the bee odors, he says. the
"hive odor" probably is the most i'm
portant. This, he says, lis composed
chiefly of the individual odors from all
the workers in a hive and is supple
mented by the odors from the queen,
drones, combs, frames, walls Of the hive
and still other sources. The odor of a
Queenless colony is perhaps considerably
different from that of colony which
has q queen. The absence Of q queen
odor probably explains why the workers
In q QueenleSS colony are irritable and
never work normally. All the bees Of
q colony carry the hive odor Of that
colony on their bodies, among the hairs.
This serves as a sign by which all the
occupants of a hive know one another.
Whenever queen enters the wrong
hive she is made to realize that she
wears the wrong badge.
Bees kept in the open air for three
days lose all the hive odor. but each bee
still emits its individual odor. When