Observations on the habits and natural surroundings of insects made during the 'Skeat expedition' to the Malay peninsula, 1899-1900 / by Nelson Annandale.

Nelson Annandale

Date:: 1900

Credit: Observations on the habits and natural surroundings of insects made during the 'Skeat expedition' to the Malay peninsula, 1899-1900 / by Nelson Annandale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$Earthworm” \ a Gryllotalpid cricket, contributes from its hole in the ground a deep, organ-like note. What is the meaning of all this noise ? “ The riang-riang sing,” a Malay would say, “ because their livers are glad ”; and in many cases we are not in a position to give any better reason. The stridulation of the male Cicada appears to be in the main and primarily a sexual call, but may also be used as a warning or alarming cry. Of insects capable of producing a sound, some species stridulate M'hen captured, but all do not. The brilliantly coloured little black and scarlet Huechys sanguinea^ which, unlike the majority of Malayan Cicadse, is diurnal and flies about among bushes in the open at midday, is silent when handled. The male of the large dung-beetle Eeliocopris mouhotus^ a pair of which was brought to me at Biserat by an elephant mahout, squeaks like a bat when touched, but is silent when lifted from the ground. The female of this species is dumb. On the other hand, many kinds of Orthoptera only stridulate when they are left in peace and quiet. In the Malay Peninsula the majority of stridulating species are nocturnal, or only sing at sunset and just before sunrise. There one does not hear the noise of grasshoppers among long grass at midday as one does in this country, though in the jungle there is a subdued hum of insects continually. At Belimbing in Legeh a man brought me several specimens of the Belalang Uusa Ijou'” or Green Deer Grasshopper {Mecopoda elongata). Each specimen was in a small bamboo-cage, as he said that if two were put together they would fight. He told me that children kept this grasshopper as a pet, feeding it on the young shoots of the pineapple, in order that they might hear it “ crow.” My specimens were silent all day, and all the evening while the lamp was lit; but in the middle of the night we were awakened by their stridulations. VI. Insect Luminosity. An Aquatic Lampyrid Larva. Form and Colour.—The body is elongated and narrow: the head is minute, and can be retracted within the thorax. There are eight abdominal segments, which are little differentiated from those of the thorax superficially. The upper surface is corrugated. The colour is dark brown, minutely marked with dull yellow in some specimens. The luminous organs were situated in two small oval patches on the under surface of the last abdominal segment, just behind the anus. Habits.—On March 30th, when catching fire-flies by the side of a marsh at Lampam, the chief town of Fatalung, I noticed a number of luminous points on the surface of a small stagnant pool. We had some difficulty in ascertaining the origin of these, for they died away slowly when the water was disturbed ; and it was not until we examined some of the plants floating on the top of the ^ See ‘ Oxford Magazine,’ Oct. 17th, 1900, p. 9. [26]$