VOICELESS WIVES. 171 



haps, account for it: Eunomus and Ariston, two 

 rival musicians, were contending against each 

 other; each played the harp, and it was hard to 

 say which was the better player, when ' crack' 

 went one of the strings of Eunomus' harp. A 

 cicada at once pitched on the top of the instru- 

 ment and supplied the want of the broken string, 

 and so effectually that Eunomus was declared the 

 victor. 



But the male Cicada has a shadow to cloud the 

 bright sunshine of his happiness ; a sad and sorry 

 misfortune, I am afraid all my lady-readers will 

 say, and I quite agree with them. The gentler 

 sex, the Ladies Cicada3, are all, without an ex- 

 ception, dumb. Some crabbed old Greek, evi- 

 dently a bachelor or henpecked husband, has 

 dared to say (I believe he was called Anaxagoras), 



Happy the cicadas' lives 



Since they have all voiceless vrives ! 



Well, if she does not waste all her day in singing 

 and scolding, she attends to her duty as a mother ; 

 and, whilst her idle husband carols his simple 

 ballad, she is busy depositing hundreds of eggs 

 in the branch of a tree. 



Admirably adapted to its purpose is the oviposi- 

 tor of the female cicada ! A borer of the most 



