252 CICADIDiE — HARVEST-FLIES. 



ascribed to the Samians. They also most probably derived 

 this fashion from the early Athenians.^ 



It seems, from the following lines of Asius,^ that Cicadas 

 were also worn as ornaments on dresses ; 



Clad in magnificent robes, whose snow-white folds 

 Reach'd to the ground of the extensive earth, 

 And golden knobs on them like grasshoppers. 



The sound of the Cicada and that of the harp were called 

 by the Greeks by one and the same name ; and a Cicada 

 sitting upon a harp was the usual emblem of the science of 

 music. This was accounted for by the following very pleas- 

 ing and elegant tale : Two rival musicians, Eunomis of 

 Locris and Aristo of Rhegium, when alternately playing 

 upon the harp, the former was so unfortunate as to break a 

 string of his instrument, and by which accident would cer- 

 tainly have lost the prize, when a Cicada, flying to him and 

 sitting upon his harp, supplied the place of the broken 

 string with its melodious voice, and so secured to him an 

 easy victory over his antagonist.^ 



To excel the Cicada in singing was the highest com- 

 mendation of a singer, and the music of Plato's eloquence 

 was only comparable to the voice of this insect. Homer 

 compared his good orators to the Cicada, "which, in the 

 woods, sitting on a tree, send forth a delicate voice. "^ But 

 Yirgil speaks of them as insects of a disagreeable and 

 stridulous tone, and accuses them of bursting the very 

 shrubs w^ith their noise, — 



Et cantu querulae nimpent arbusta Cicadas. ^ 



Moufetsays : " The Cicadas, abounding in the end of spring, jj 



1 Cicada-combs are alluded to in Aristoph., Eq. 1331. Cf. also 

 Philostr. Imag., p. 837. Heracl. Pont., cited by Athen., p. 512. 

 Bloomfield's Thucid., 1. 14. 



2 Cited by Athen., p. 842 (Bohn's ed.). 



3 Strabo, Geoff. B. G. 



* Iliad, iii. 152. Buckley's translation, p. 53. 



5 Georg. iii. 328. Cf. Bucol. ii. Sir J. E. Smith, Tour., iii. 95, 

 says also that the common Italian species makes a most disagreeable 

 and dull chirping. The Cicadas of Africa, it is said, may be heard 

 half a mile oiF; and the sound of one in a room will put a whole 

 company to silence. Thunberg asserts that those of .Java utter a 

 sound as shrill and piercing as that of a trumpet. Captain Hancock 

 informed Messrs. Kirby and Spcnce that the Brazilian Cicadas sing 



