THE SYMPHONY OF VOICES 



their windows, so that one hears the "smith" streets away; while 

 if one stands before the cage one's ears ring with the din. 



The second "smith" is the Bundle-nest bird or Turucuhe; its tones 

 are not like hammer-strokes, but may be compared with the sound 

 of a knife-grinder at work. While the Turucuhe is a characteristic 

 bird of the Sertao, whose grinding sound seems attuned to the 

 spacious wilderness, a cinnamon-brown relative, the Curutia, is 

 common all over Brazil. This bird does not very often suspend its 

 great "bundle-nest," but builds it in the branches of a bush (Plate 

 28, 19). Its call is a shrill, far-reaching trrrrr . . . ; which reminds one 

 of the sound of a toy watchman's rattle. On all the paths of the Tijuca 

 one hears its warning, emphatic tikju, or a sharp zrip, and sees the 

 lively, cinnamon-brown bird slipping excitedly through the bushes, 

 in its movements reminding one of our hedge-sparrow. Once I saw 

 a Curutia wade some distance into a stream, catching water-insects. 

 The Potter-bird, "Joao de barro," has also a trilling cry, or rather 

 shriek, trrr, which it intersperses with single vigorously staccato notes. 



The third Ferreiro is a frog. The call of this large brown batra- 

 chian sounds like the stroke of a hammer on a barrel, and it would 

 be more fitly called the "Cooper." A related species, Hyla crepitans, 

 which I heard in a pond near Victoria in Pernambuco from a moving 

 train, deluded me into thinking that a railway worker was throwing 

 rails on to a heap. Of the first of these hammering frogs I shall say 

 something in the next chapter. 



A characteristic sound of all tropical countries, and also of southern 

 Europe, is the song of the Cicada (Plate 29, II, 6). The Brazilians 

 call this insect the "Cigarra." Therefore, if one wants a cigar in 

 Brazil, one must not ask for a "cigarra," or one might be offered 

 one of these insects ; the Brazilians call cigars charutos. The name 

 "Cigarra" really fits the insect better than Cicada, as it is more 

 suggestive of the whirring "song" of the insect. 



As in the case of the birds, it is only the male that "sings" ; a 

 fact which inspired the Greek Xenarchos of Rhodes to exclaim: 

 "Happily live the cicadas, for their wives are dumb." The vocal 

 apparatus is in the abdomen, and consists of two stretched mem- 

 branes, like drum-heads, which are vibrated by special muscles. 

 The sound thus produced is amplified by the large resonating 

 cavities in the body. The Cicadas, then, are drummers, whereas 

 the Grasshoppers and Crickets are fiddlers, for they draw a toothed 

 shank across the edge of the wing, or even rub the wings together. 



The female Cicadas lay their eggs, by means of an ovipositor, 



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