254 CICADIDiE — HARVEST-FLIES. 



hair tied to the end of a short stick, and looped in a cap of 

 stiff writing-paper placed over the hole of a spool. To make 

 the sound, then, the toy was whirled rapidly through the 

 air, when the stiff paper acted as a sounding-board to the 

 vibrating hair. 



At Surinam, Madame Merian tells us, the noise of the 

 Cicada tihicen is still supposed to resemble the sound of a 

 harp or lyre, and hence called the Lierman — the harper.^ 

 Another species, in Ceylon, which makes the forest re-echo 

 with a long-sustained noise so curiously resembling that of 

 a cutler's wheel, has acquired the highly appropriate name 

 of the Knife-grinder.'^ 



It is said of our Cicada septemdecim, the so-called, but 

 very improperly, " Seventeen-year Locust," that, when they 

 first leave the earth, Avhen they are plump and full of juices, 

 they have been made use of in the manufacture of soap. 



The larva of a Chinese species of Cicada, the Flata lim- 

 bata, which scarcely exceeds the domestic fly in size, forms 

 a sort of grease, which adheres to the branches of trees and 

 hardens into wax. In autumn the natives scrape this sub- 

 stance, which they call Fela, from off the trees, melt, purify, 

 and form it into cakes. It is white and glossy in appear- 

 ance, and, when mixed with oil, is used to make candles, 

 and is said to be superior to the common w^ax for use. The 

 physicians employ it in several diseases ; and the Chinese, 

 as we are informed by the Abbe Crosier, when they are 

 about to speak in public, or when any occasion is likely to 

 occur on which it may be necessary to have assurance and 

 resolution, eat an ounce of it to prevent swoonings or palpi- 

 tations of the heart.^ 



On the large cheese-like cakes of this wax, hanging in the 

 grocers' and tallow-chandlers' shops at Hankow, are often 

 seen the inscription written: "It mocks at the frost, and 

 rivals the snow." The price, in 1858, was forty dollars a 

 picul, or about fifteei> pence a pound.* 



The Creeks, notwithstanding their veneration for the 

 Cicada, made these insects an article of food, and accounted 

 them delicious. Aristotle says, the larva, when it is grown 



1 Surinam^ 49. 



2 Tenuent, Nal. Hist, of Ceylon, p. 432. 

 s Desc. of China, i. 442. 



* Olipbant's Lord Elgin's Miss, to China, p. 665. 



