I 



CICADID^ — IIARVEST-FLIES. 251 



But the old witticism, attributed to the incorrigible Kho- 

 dian sensualist, Xenarchus, gives quite a different reason to 

 account for the supposed happiness of these insects: 



Happy the Cicadas' lives, 



Since they all have voiceless wives ! * 



Plutarch, reasoning upon that singular Pythagorean pre- 

 cept which forbid the wife to admit swallows in the house, 

 remarks: "Consider, and see whether the swallow be not 

 odious and impious .... because she feedeth upon flesh, 

 and, besides, killeth and devoureth especially grasshoppers 

 (Cicadas), which are sacred and musical."^ 



The Athenians were so attached to the Cicadas, that 

 their elders were accustomed to fasten golden images of 

 them in their hair. Thucidides incidentally remarks that 

 this custom ceased but a little before his time. He adds, 

 also, that the fashion prevailed, too, for a long time with 

 the elders of the lonians, from their affinity to the Athe- 

 nians.^ 



This singular form, for their ornamental combs, seems to 

 have been adopted originally from the predilection of the 

 Athenians for whatever bore any affinity to themselves, who 

 boasted of being autochthones or aboriginal. It is sung of 

 the Athenians : 



Blithe race ! whose mantles were bedeck'd 



With golden grasshoppers, in sign that they 



Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil 



Whereon their endless generations dwelt. 



Mr. Michell supposes the Athenians to have imitated in 

 this instance their prototypes, the Egyptians ; for as they, 

 he adds, wore their favorite symbol, the Scaraba^us, in this 

 manner, so Attic pride set up a rival in the head-dress thus 

 introduced by Cecrops and his followers.'^ 



From a very ancient writer,^ we have similar ornaments 



1 It is a philosophical fact that the female Cicadas are not capable 

 of making any noise — the above distich evinces its early discovery. 



2 Symposiaques. B. 8. Holl. Trans., p. C30. 



3 Thuc. B. 1, vi. (Bohn's ed.). 

 * On Aristoph., Ve^p. 230. 



^ Cited by Athen., 625. 



