Zoolog;/.] NATURAL HISTORY OF VICTORIA. Ihisecta. 



almost think iuclicatecl a great foiling off in their powers to please 

 in our clay. As the Chinese, however, do exactly the same still 

 with tlieir Cicada, I foncy (as the CicadcB are too great conservatives 

 to change) that the real foct may be that the ancient Greek taste for 

 music may have resembled the execrable modern Chinese one, which, 

 as I have heard it grandly exemplified in some of their theatres on 

 the goldfields, might be said in its din to be diabolical^f the com- 

 pai-ison were not perhaps unfair to the absent. 



After the singing has drawn attention to the jierfect insect having 

 emerged from the pupa skin, the females may be seen ascending the 

 trees until some dry twig is reached, in which they cut a groove 

 with the saw-like plates forming the jagged edges of the broad 

 spear-head at the posterior end of the long, horny, cylindrical borer 

 at the hinder extremity of the abdomen ; and in each groove they 

 deposit a few eggs. The young, as Reaumur remarked of the 

 European Cicada, resemble fleas in size and shape ; they quickly 

 reach the ground, into which they burrow, and whence they may 

 be dug out at the roots of trees any time during the larval and 

 pupa states. The larva is white, and seems to feed on underground 

 roots ; the eyes, 6 legs, and antennae, agreeing with the jmpa, as 

 figured on our plate, which chiefly difi'ers in having the rudimentary 

 wings visible at the sides of the body. The pupae ultimately come 

 out of the ground, crawl up a few feet on the trunk of the nearest 

 Gum-tree in the night, and then, splitting along the back, the 

 surprisingly larger, winged, perfect insect creeps out, leaving the 

 empty pupa skin clinging to the tree quite pei'fect, even to the 

 smallest hair or other part, in the position of life. These are what 

 Aristotle called the Tittigomeira, or mother of the Cicadcs, fi-om a 

 recognition of the fact of the perfect, winged, Cicadce ( Tettix of 

 the Greeks) coming forth from them. 



This large species of Cicada piercing the young twigs of the 

 Peppermint Gmii-tree {Eucah/ptus viminalis) causes an abundant 

 exudation of sap, which, drying in the hot parched air of the 

 midsummer, leaves the sugary solid remains in a gradually 

 increasing lump, which ultimately falls off, covering the ground 

 with a sort of white sweet manna in little irregular masses. This 

 particular kind of manna is the " Melitose " of chemists (C^^H^^O"), 



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