NOISES OF INSKCTS. 899 



rival musicians, Eimomus and Ariston, were contending 

 upon that instrument, a Cicada flying to the former and 

 sitting upon his harp, supplied the place of a broken 

 string, and so secured to him the victory *. To excel 

 this animal in singing seems to have been the highest 

 commendation of a singer ; and even the eloquence of 

 Plato was not thought to suffer by a comparison with 

 it^. At Surinam the noise of the Cicada Tihicen is still 

 supposed so much to resemble the sound of a harp or 

 lyre, that they are called there harpers {Liermaii) ^. 

 Whether the Grecian Cicadae maintain at present their 

 ancient character for music, travellers do not tell us. 



Those of other countries, however, have been held in 

 less estimation for their powers of song ; or rather have 

 been execrated for the deafening din that they produce. 

 Virgil accuses those of Italy of bursting the very shrubs 

 with their noise ■* ; and Sir J. E. Smith observes that 

 this species, which is very common, makes a most dis- 

 agreeable dull chirping ^. Another, Cicada septendecim 

 — which fortunately, as its name imports, appears only 

 once in seventeen years — makes such a continual din 

 from morning to evening that people cannot hear each 

 other speak. They appear in Pennsylvania in incredible 

 numbers in the middle of May ^. — " In the hotter months 

 of summer," says Dr. Shaw, " especially from midday 

 to the middle of the afternoon, the Cicada, tett*^, or 

 grasshopper, as we falsely translate it, is perpetually 

 stunning our ears with its most excessively shrill and 



» Mouffet, Theatr. 130. 



^ ' lllvi'T^di ll'AXTioy, Kdi Tirri^iv lao'Kethog. '^ Merian Surinam. 49. 



'' Et cantu qiierulai rumpent arhiista cicadas. Georg. iii. 328. 



" Smith's Tour, iii. 95. 



f CoHiiison in Philos. Tram. 17<J3. StoU, Cigales, 26, 



