Flies and bees, and the
like, produce their special noise by opening and shutting their
wings in the act of flying; for the noise made is by the friction of
air between the wings when in motion. The noise made by grasshoppers
is produced by rubbing or reverberating with their long hind-legs.
No mollusc or crustacean can produce any natural voice or sound.
Fishes can produce no voice, for they have no lungs, nor windpipe
and pharynx; but they emit certain inarticulate sounds and squeaks,
which is what is called their 'voice', as the lyra or gurnard, and the
sciaena (for these fishes make a grunting kind of noise) and the
caprus or boar-fish in the river Achelous, and the chalcis and the
cuckoo-fish; for the chalcis makes a sort piping sound, and the
cuckoo-fish makes a sound greatly like the cry of the cuckoo, and is
nicknamed from the circumstance. The apparent voice in all these
fishes is a sound caused in some cases by a rubbing motion of their
gills, which by the way are prickly, or in other cases by internal
parts about their bellies; for they all have air or wind inside
them, by rubbing and moving which they produce the sounds. Some
cartilaginous fish seem to squeak.
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