HEARING IN INSECTS. 



85 



pared to it, can be compared to nothing better than 

 loud loquacious scolds.'* Dr Shaw appears to 

 forget that a loud clear voice was one of the highest 

 excellencies of a warlike orator in addressing a body 

 of troops in the open air, and that Virgil seems to be 

 much of the same opinion with himself as to their 

 musical powers,! which Sir J. E. Smith calls a most 

 disagreeable dull chirping. J 



One would suppose from this, that instead of 

 the tuneful cicada, celebrated by the Greek poets, 

 our authors were referring to another family {Fid- 

 goiidce), who appear, however, to sing by night 

 rather than by day, such as the great lantern-fly 

 [Fidgora lanternaria, Linn.), which makes a noise 

 somewhat between the grating of a razor-grinder 

 and the clang of cymbals, so loud also that it is 

 called scare-sleep^ by the Dutch, in Guiana.^ It is 

 probably the same or a similar species which Ligon 

 tells us makes a great noise in the night at Barba- 

 does. They ' lie,' he says, ' all day in holes and 

 hollow trees, and as soon as the sun is down begin 

 their tunes, which are neither singing nor crying, but 

 the shrillest voices I ever heard : nothing can be so 

 nearly resembled to it as the mouths of a pack of 

 small beagles at a distance.' This author, however, 

 thought this sound by no means unpleasant. ' So 

 lively and chirping,' he continues, ' the noise is, as 

 nothing can be more delightful to the ears, if there 

 were not too much of it, for the music hath no inter- 

 mission till morning, and then all is hushed. '|| Pos- 

 sibly he may allude to another insect ( Tettigonia 

 septendecim), which is said to visit Philadelphia, in 

 the month of May, every seventeen years, in num- 

 bers almost incredible, and makes so loud a noise that 



* Travels in Barbary, p. 1S6. 

 t Georgics, iii, 328. i Tour on the Continent, hi, 95. 



§ Stedman, Surinam, ii, 37. || History of Barbadoes, p. 65. 

 VOL. XII. 8 



