THE SONG OF THE CIGALE 37 



abdomen project two short, wide, tongue-shaped 

 projections, the free extremities of which rest on the 

 cymbals. These tongues may be compared to the blade 

 of a watchman's rattle, only instead of engaging with the 

 teeth of a rotating wheel they touch the nervures of the 

 vibrating cymbal. From this fact, I imagine, results 

 the harsh, grating quality of the cry. It is hardly 

 possible to verify the fact by holding the insect in the 

 fingers ; the terrified Cacan does not go on singing 

 his usual song, 



The dampers do not overlap ; on the contrary, they 

 are separated by a fairly wide interval. With the rigid 

 tongues, appendages of the abdomen, they half shelter 

 the cymbals, half of which is completely bare. Under 

 the pressure of the finger the abdomen opens a little 

 at its articulation with the thorax. But the insect is 

 motionless when it sings ; there is nothing of the 

 rapid vibrations of the belly which modulate the song 

 of the common Cigale. The chapels are very small ; 

 almost negligible as resonators. There are mirrors, as 

 in the common Cigale, but they are very small ; scarcely 

 a twenty-fifth of an inch in diameter. In short, the 

 resonating mechanism, so highly developed in the 

 common Cigale, is here extremely rudimentary. How 

 then is the feeble vibration of the cymbals re-enforced 

 until it becomes intolerable ? 



This species of Cigale is a ventriloquist. If we 

 examine the abdomen by transmitted light, we shall see 

 that the anterior two-thirds of the abdomen are trans- 

 lucent. With a snip of the scissors we will cut off 

 the posterior third, to which are relegated, reduced to 

 the strictly indispensable, the organs necessary to the 



