﻿The CicacUe are exceedingly interesting from their having 

 attracted the notice of the most celebrated ancient poets and 

 writers ; and it is remarkable enough that whilst the Greeks 

 loved and extolled them tor their sonjj, Virjril execrated them 

 for their noi^e as well as more modern authors. 



The males only are furnished with the curious apparatus for 

 singing : a pleasing account of these insects will be found in the 

 2nd vol. of Kirby and Spence (p. 402) ; and in Latreille's 

 Hist. Nat. tome 2. p. 293, their habits and oeconomv are de- 

 tailed. 



The species of Cicada? are very numerous and are distri- 

 buted over a vast portion of the globe, from Europe to Brazil, 

 the Cape of Good Hope, New Holland, China, and the inter- 

 mediate countries. There are none nmch smaller than our 

 British species, but I have a Herculean one from Penang, pre- 

 sented to me by my friend James Thompson, Escj., which mea- 

 sures 7 inches across, when the wings are expanded ; in an- 

 other from Java the plates are very remarkable, and form a 

 lobe on each side nearly | of an inch long. 



No species has been found so far to the north I believe as 

 C. Anglica. I have adopted this name, as I am not confident 

 that it is the C. hconatodcs of Linn. ; the C. sangxiinca of Fabri- 

 cius (C luematodcs Scop.) is a larger and different insect, 

 which has never been found in England: we met with it in the 

 vineyards in the JSouth of France, where we also took C. plv- 

 bcia on the almond trees, C Orni on fir trees, as well as an- 

 other the size of C. Atiglica^ and somewhat like it. Their songs 

 were very difierent, but none of them very agreeable, and 

 when the sun was unclouded tlie whole air vibrated with their 

 singing. 



C. Atiglica was first discovered in the New Forest about 20 

 years since, and although Mr. Dale and myself have been un- 

 ceasing in our endeavours to find it, we never succeeded until 

 last year. The first I took on the 2nd of June, and on the 7th 

 two more; the males fly about like humble-bees ; the females I 

 beat out of white-thorns, and some of them then flew into furze 

 bushes, and when entangled in them, they made a buzzing like 

 a Libellula similarly situated ; they are found also on the stems 

 of the Fern, and I suspect ihe larvie live on the roots. I do 

 not think our Cicada sings ; the abdominal plates are very 

 small and appear to me to be united. Mr. Dale kept a male 

 alive 2 or 3 days, but it was perfectly mute. This, however, 

 is by no means conclusive, because it may require heat and 

 sunshine to call its })owers of song into action. 



Mr. ISamouelle having represented the female, I havefigureil 

 the male, which is bv tin- the rarer sex. 'I'he Flant is Aqui- 

 h-gia I'ulgaris (Counnon Columbine). 



