2 ORIENTAL CICADID.E. 



described as "drums," but are really covering-flaps, or as they are generally called "opercula," 

 in agreement with Stal and other writers. These opercula, in many genera, are by their length 

 and structure most important factors in specific differentiation. The real drums or " tympana" 

 are either seen above on each side near the base of the abdomen as in the Tibicciwue, or 

 covered by the dilated or expanded lateral areas of the basal abdominal segment,* as in the 

 Cicadince. 



The females are provided with a remarkably developed ovipositor, by which they are 

 enabled to pierce the branches of trees and there deposit their eggs. According to Westwood, 

 the female deposits from five to seven hundred eggs, t but we have the statement of 

 Dr. Hildreth that in North America the stock of eggs possessed by the female of Tihicen 

 scptcmdecem " amounted to about one thousand." \ 



It may be here stated that it is proposed in this work to fully describe and figure all the 

 species known or recorded from Continental India and Ceylon, the islands in the Bay of 

 Bengal, Burma, Tenasserim, the Malay Peninsula, the length and breadth of the Malayan 

 Archipelago, including, but not extending eastward of. New Guinea ; and Eastern Asia including 

 China and Japan. It will be thus evident that this area, in a zoo-geographical sense, is a very 

 arbitrary one, including the whole of the Oriental Kegion of Wallace, or the Indian Region 

 of Sclater, § entering the Australian Region at New Guinea, and embracing the Japanese 

 Subregion of the Palearctic realm. The Monograph thus embraces — literally — Oriental Cicadidae, 

 and many genera can thus be more exhaustively treated than if a smaller, though more 

 accurate, zoo-geographical region had limited our descriptive work. 



As regards the habits and life peculiarities of the Gicadidce, we lack much precise 

 information. References to these sound-producing insects are naturally found in most books 

 of travel written by authors to whom Nature has, at least, some kind of interest, but even in 

 these the recorded facts can only be apphed to the members, or rather some individuals, 

 of the group II belonging to a special locality, as specific, or even generic, distinctions can 

 scarcely be expected to be recognised. Some attempt will be made to collate a number of these 

 observations, and opportunity will be sought to diffuse them throughout the work in a more or 

 less geographical manner as opportunities arise. 



The general impressions of Cicadan music are naturally varied. Darwin, when at 



■■■' I follow Stal in considering this as the basal segment of the abdomen, though Mr. Woodworth, in a recent " Synopsis 

 of North American Cicadidse," describes the "second abdominal segment of the male" as being expanded.— ' Psyche,' 

 vol. V. p. 67 (1888). 



\ ' Modern Classification of Insects,' vol. ii. p. 425. 



* Sillim Amer. Journ. 1830, p. 49.— As Darwin has admurably put it, "tlie real importance of a large number of 

 eggs or seeds is to make up for much destruction at some period of life; and this period in the great majority of cases is an 

 early one." — ' Origin of Species.' 



§ Address delivered to Biol. Sect. Brit. Association, Bristol (1875). 



il Even this is not always the case. Thus we frequently find, in books of travel, references to gi-asshoppers, when 

 cicadas are evidently the insects intended. But perhaps the " reductlo ad absurdnm, ' m tins respect, is reached by an 

 anecdote given in that still charming narrative of Capt. Cook :-" One of the seamen who had been ramblmg m the woods 

 told us at his return that he verily believed he had seen the devil ; we naturally enquired m what form he had appeared, and 

 his answer was in so singular a style that I shall set down his own words :-' He was,' says John as large as a one-gaUon 

 ke-, and very hke it ; he had horns and wings, yet he crept so slowly tlu-ough the gi-ass, that if I had not been afeard^ I might 

 have touched him.' This formidable apparition we afterwards discovered to have been a bat —■'The Voyages oi Capt. .J as. 

 Cook ' vol. i. p. 234. Our modern poets are now even changing the English name ; thus, in Mr. Alhngham s Flower Pieces 

 and other Poems,' just published, and in which some earlier-published poems have received a new editing, ' Cicada drunk with 

 drops of dew," has become a tettix, and we read "0 Tettix," and " O my Tettis," where formerly appeared, '; Cicada and 

 " dear Cicada." But, oh, mirahile dictu ! a reviewer of these poems defends the name " Cicada against iettix, as though 

 less onomatopoeic, being more pleasant, and long since " the EngUsh way of naming this grasshopper:' 



