84 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



is raised, a cavity is brought into view, part of which 

 seems to open into the belly, and another part to 

 be covered with a second membrane, much more 

 delicate than the exterior one, tensely stretched, and 

 iridescent, and in the middle there is a horny plate, 

 placed horizontally along the bottom. All this, how- 

 ever, seems only a secondary portion ot^ the instru- 

 ment ; for the sound is in the first instance produced 

 by a bundle of muscular strings, which are attached 

 at one extremity to another membrane in the interior, 

 obviously the true drum ; for when Reaumur pulled 

 the strings and let them go again, the sound was 

 produced even after the insect had been a long while 

 dead. These muscles, indeed, are so attached to 

 the under concave surface of the drum, that when 

 they pull it downwards and let it jerk quickly back 

 again, a vibration is produced ; the sound issues 

 through an opening contrived on purpose, like the 

 opening in our own larynx, or the sound hole in a 

 violin.* 



As in the case of the field cricket, very different 

 opinions appear to have been held of the music of 

 the celebrated tettix (Tstt<|) of the Grecian poets. 

 '■ In the hotter months of summer, ' says Dr Shaw, 

 ' especially from midday to the middle of the after- 

 noon, the cicada, tettix, or grasshopper (as we falsely 

 translate it), is perpetually stunning our ears with its 

 most excessively shrill and ungrateful noise. It is in 

 this respect the most troublesome and impertinent of 

 insects, perching upon a twig, and squalling some- 

 times two or three hours without ceasing^ thereby 

 too often disturbing the studies or short repose that is 

 frequently indulged in these hot climates at those 

 hours. The tettix of the Greeks must have had a 

 quite difTerent voice, more soft, surely, and melodious, 

 otherwise the fine orators of Homer, who are com-- 



* Reaumur, Mem. v, 178. 



