PREFACE. vu 



developed in the male sex. A recent writer has affirmed that the song of the Cicada is 

 appreciated by other orders of insects. According to this observer — whose name is not 

 mentioned by the narrator — in Natal, when a species is singing its loudest, it is often 

 surrounded by numbers of a lace-wing fly" (Xothochrifsa gigantca).* The song is suspended 

 when the insect is alarmed, as in the Transvaal, where, when a tree has ahuost vibrated with 

 the screeching noise, I have produced complete silence by standing amidst its branches. 



We know nothing of the mental concepts of these beautiful insects. The writer is not a 

 Cartesian, and does not estimate even the Cicadidae as living automata. The " life-liistories" 

 of insects may include their embryological stages, with an exhaustive knowledge of their 

 structure, their classification in zoological sequence, their geographical distribution, the 

 protective or mimetic resemblances by which they often survive the terrors of a struggle for 

 existence, their duration and habits of life, their food and times of appearance, and yet, little 

 as this knowledge can be said to exist regarding many insects, the veil is no more lifted which 

 hides their — probably limited — thoughts and feelings, than those of the inhabitants of a 

 Kafir kraal are known to the vulture soaring above tliem. The psychology of insects is 

 practically imdreamed in the philosophy of entomologists. If, as has been truly remarked, with 

 ears sufficiently attuned and capable, we might hear the roar of the atoms which environ us, 

 how much more might we long to have a sympathetic insight into the ideas, fears, and 

 concepts of the living mass of creatures of which w^e form so small a part.f I have recently 

 hazarded the opinion, though upon very limited observation, that at least a species of African 

 I'latijplcura may pair for life in the mature development. \ If reason and intelligence are, and 

 must be, allowed to ants, termites, bees, and even wasps and spiders, surely it is only our 

 ignorance that prevents the recognition of some form of the saine qualities in the Cicadidae. 

 Although Entomology has made such strides, and so many thousands of insects are now fully 

 described, catalogued, and often figured, yet to their inner lives we are " strangers yet." 



The Cicadidae appear to be one of the most non-protected family of insects, and are the 

 victims of most predacious creatures. The instances that can be quoted probably only give 

 an idea of the way their members are thinned by numerous enemies, while the list of those 

 enemies is at present very incompletely known. § They probably largely fall a prey to birds. 

 In Nicaragua, Belt has described how during April, when the Cicadas are particularly plentiful, 



* ' Nature Notes,' August, 1891. 



f Dr. Mivart has lately re-affirmed his belief that the psychical powers of brutes are limited to sense perception, and 

 give no evidence of the possession of the higher faculties of ideation and conception ('Essays and Criticisms') ; but the proof 

 is absent, and though reasonable the statement does not carry more conviction than some theological propositions. On the 

 other hand. Count Goblet d'Alviella truly remarks, when discussing the question of ' Religion in Animals' : — " A century ago 

 such a question would only have provoked a smile ; but now that we have accustomed ourselves to search in the lowest strata 

 of animal life for the antecedents of physiological and intellectual characteristics which only receive their full expression in the 

 best-endowed representatives of human culture, it is no longer possible to dismiss the question of the religion of animals in this 

 summary style. Animals share the philosophic fate of savages. They are alternately exalted and humbled, according to the 

 exigencies of tlie current theory as to the position of man in nature" (Hibbert Lectures, 1S91, p. -li)). Westermarck, in his 

 great work, ' The History of Human Marriage,' goes back to the precursors of man in his study of the origin of that in^ititution, 

 and a course he forcibly affirms (p. 9) is " the only one which can lead to the trutli, but a path which is open to him alone who 

 regards organic nature as one continued chain, the last and most perfect link of which is man." 



J ' Naturalist in the Transvaal,' p. 07. 



§ A few of the following notes I pubhshed in my description of the Central .American Cicadid* in i!ie • Biologia 

 Centrali Americana.' 



