24 THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



well be consecrated to some nymphs and the river Achelous, to 

 judge by these figures and statues. Taste a little the good air 

 one breathes. How charming, how sweet ! One hears as a 

 summer noise an harmonious murmur accompanying the chorus 

 o£ the Cicada.''^ No one, however, has sung o£ the brisk music o£ 

 the T)X'?«'J TETTii better than Meleager of Gadara, whose Syrio- 

 Greek poems are always delicious. 



" 0, shrill-voiced insect ! that with dewdrops sweet, 

 Inebriate, dost in the desert woodlands sing ; 

 Perched in the spray -top with indented feet, 

 Thy dusky body's echoings harp-like ring. 

 Come, dear Cicada ! chirj) to all the grove, 

 The Nymphs and Pan, a new responsive strain ; 

 That I, in noontide sleep, may steal from love, 

 Reclined beneath the dark o'erspreading plane." 



The word " Cicada " has been derived from ciccum, a thin 

 skin, and also from cito, quickly, and cadere, to fall, a compound 

 suggestive of their being short-lived ; while aSetj/, to sing, 

 is stated to signify intrinsically a sound produced by motion of 

 a pellicle. A Cicada in ancient days was the emblem of music 

 among the Egyptians and Greeks ; and according to Polybius its 

 Q^gY was struck on the coins of races who claimed superiority 

 in that art, as the Messenians in Arcadia, and Locrians in Italy. 

 In the rich collection of the Yivenzio family in Nola it is stated 

 there exists a vase of baked earth on whose exterior is depicted a 

 humorous representation of a poet placing in the flickering flame 

 of an altar his lyre, from the strings of which some Cicada? are 

 springing ; an allusion, we presume, to the tale of Ariston, 

 respecting which Strabo, with what sounds like mock gravity, 

 tells us that there existed this peculiarity in regard to the river 

 Halex, which, gliding between deep banks, divided the lands of 

 Regium from those of Locris, namely, that the Cicada on the 

 side appertaining to the Locrians were vocal, but those on the 

 other side mute, and that the reason of this some deemed to be 

 that the latter were in a shady place, and therefore, owing to the 

 dew, their membranes were not distended ; while the former, 

 dwelling in an open spot, had dry and horny membranes, which 

 easily emitted sound. Another version of the story is that 

 Hercules, wishing one day to sleep on this bank, was so tormented 

 by the " sweet eloquence " of the Cicadas, that, furious at their 



