Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1884 — The Whistling Tree. [ARTICLE]

The Whistling Tree.

In Nubia and the Soudan groves a species of acacia are ascribed as existing, whose scientific appellation, as well as the popular name, is derived from a peculiar sound emitted by the branches when swayed by the wind. The Arabic name is the “soffa, ” or pipe, and the specific name of fistula, also meaning a pipe, has been given to it for the same reason which prompted the natives to give it its local designation. The tree is infested with insects whose eggs are deposited in the young shoots and extremities of the branches. A sort of gall-like excrescence abOnt an inch in diameter is produced at the base of these shoots, and when the larva has emerged from this nidns, it leaves 1 small circular hole, the action of the wind in which causes it to produce a whistling sound like that produced by * flute or by blowing any hollow

lyhdSa the wind is violent, the noise caused by thousands of these natural flutes in a grove of acacias is most remarkable. The description given by , Dr. Schweinforth of these bladder-like, galls leaves it uncertain whether they are true gall-nuts or whether they are the secretion of a species of lac ifisects. The valuable Indian lac insect thrives on two or three species of acacia, while one variety (the A. Arabica) also produces a pod or gall-nut. which is useful for tanning. In either ca c e, these natural “whistles” of the whistling tree would form a valuable article of commerce if they could be easily and regularly collected and exported.