462 



Marvels of Insect Life. 



There is, apparentlv, considerable difference in the character of the sounds 

 produced bv x\merican cicadas and those of Europe. The ancient Greeks kept 

 the hitter in cages for the sake of their songs, and in this connection Kirby and 

 Spence have a paragrapli which is worth quoting. Cicadas, they declare, " seem 

 to have been the favourites of every Grecian bard from Homer and Hesiod to 

 Anacreon and Theocritus. Supposed to be perfectlv harmless, and to live only 

 upon the dew, the\' were addressed by the most endearing epithets, and were 

 regarded as all but divine. One bard entreats the shepherds to spare the innoxious 

 tettix, that nightingale of the Nymphs, and to make those mischievous birds the 

 thrush and blackbird their prey. ' Sweet prophet of the summer,' says Anacreon, 

 addressing this Insect, ' the Pluses lo\'e thee, Phoebus himself loves thee, and has 



given thee a shrill song ; old age does 

 not wear thee out ; thou art wise, 

 earth-born, musical, impassive, without 

 blood ; thou art almost like a god.' 

 So attached were the Athenians to 

 these Insects that they were accus- 

 tomed to fasten golden images of 

 them in their hair, implving at the 

 same time a boast that they themselves 

 as well as the cicadse, were terrci' filii. 

 The\- were regarded indeed h\ all as 

 the happiest as well as the most 

 innocent of animals." 



The Romans appear to have 

 differed from the Greeks in their 

 appreciation of this music, for Virgil 

 in his Georgics accuses his native 

 cicadas of bursting the very shrubs 

 with their noise, and he is supported 

 by the comparativclv modern Sir J. E. 



CicAUA'b Musical Chamber. Smith, who savs it " makes a most 



The drawine: shows what lies undc-r each of the two covers seen in i "11 ^ • ■ <> 



the preceding photograph. The jutting object to the left is part of dlSagrCCable Clull Chn'pUlg. In OUr 



the hind-leg. The large oval near the centre is the drum or tvmbal, <-' i » i » -i i i 



whose vibrations are the primary source of the sounds. Towards OWn day, C. \ . IvlleV, thC latC State 



the left and lower than the drum is a tensely stretched membrane — ' . i c 1 



the mirror— reflecting light and appearing many coloured. EntomolOglSt , tllUS rclcrS tO tllC 



seventeen-year cicada : " The general noise, on approaching the infested woods, is 

 a combination of that of a distant threshing machine and a distant frog-pond. That 

 which they make when disturbed mimics a nest of young snakes or young bir<l> 

 under similar circumstances — a sort of scream. They can only produce a ihirp 

 somewhat like that of a cricket and a \'er\- loud, shrill screech i)rolonged for fitleen 

 or twenty seconds, and gradually increasing in force and then decreasing." 



The order of Insects ^ which, next to the cicadas, has been most celebrated for 

 the production of sounds, contains the crickets and grasshoppers ; and these produce 

 their shrill cries in quite another manner, tht? instrument being more akin to the 

 iiddle and bow. ^'et, e\en here, there is a creat amount of variation in the method 



' Ortlioiitera 



