HEMIPTERA. 



pur[)ose> of others. We therefore peruse the following account of an unknown species 

 of Cicada with particular regret, because it withholds information interesting to the 

 naturalist, and from its air of novelty is likely to promote an erroneous opinion con- 

 cerning that singular tribe of insects. 



" The low and sometimes marshy country through which the river* passes, is fa- 

 vourable to the production of insects ; and many of them were troublesome, some prin- 

 cipally by their sting, and others by their constant stunning noise. The music emitted 

 by a species of Cicada was not of the vocal kind ; but produced by the motion of two 

 flaps or lamellee which cover the abdomen or belly of the insect. It is the signal of 

 invitation from the male of t/uit species to allure the female, which latter is quite un- 

 provided with these organs of courtship. "f 



Again, when describing a town higher up the river, that author says, " The shops of 

 Hai-tien, in addition to necessaries, abounded in toys and trifles, calculated to amuse 

 the rich and idle of both sexes, even to cages containing insects, such as the noisi/ 

 Cicada, and a large species of the Gryllus."J 



The reader may imagine from the first account, that the music of every other species 

 of Cicada is of the vocal kind, or that it is peculiar to this Chinese insect to be furnished 

 with lamellae that cause a sound. The latter account confirms such conjecture, by 

 alluding in a specific manner to the 7wisi/ Cicada, as to an insect described in a former 

 part of liic work. We must remark, that not only the males of the species mentioned 

 by that author are furnished with those lamellae, but the whole of that section of the 

 Linnaean Cicadae which Fabricius has called Tettigonia. The males of the species 

 included in the other sections of that genus are certainly furnished with them also ; 

 though some of them are too minute to be observed without a glass. These lamellae vary 

 in size in different species ; but the accounts we have of them from travellers in foreign 

 countries, and naturalists both ancient and modern, prove that they all emit a certain 

 sound to allure the female. As we are unable to ascertain the Chinese species Sir 

 George mentions, neither figure nor description accompanying his account of it, we must 

 therefore speak generally of the whole genus, and then confine our remarks to those 

 species we are acquainted with from China. Among these are C. splendidula, sajiguinea, 

 and atrata. The latter, we believe, is the largest species of the Chinese Cicadae known 

 in Europe. 



* Pei-ho. 



t Chap. 3. Vol. II. octavo. 



X Chap. 4. Vol. II. 



