NOTES ON THE BRITISH CICADA, CICADETTA MONTANA. 333 



monotonous "whirr" of the nightjar {Caprimulgus europceus), 

 pitched on a much higher and more musical note. The song 

 swells in volume as it proceeds, and then dies gradually away, 

 occasionally ceasing suddenly. It is not continuous, the musician 

 taking frequent rests, which may last for several minutes. I 

 found that I could distinctly hear the note twenty yards away, 

 at which distance it might easily have been mistaken for a 

 " singing in the ear." 



During the next fortnight I heard Cicadas several times, and 

 found that, with practice, I could more easily locate them, and 

 so disproved my original idea that they possess ventriloquial 

 powers. The males seem to prefer the lower branches of the 

 pine-trees from which to show off their musical abilities, though 

 on one or two occasions I found the singer in a hawthorn bush. 

 The insects become silent before sunset, and on dull cloudy days 

 do not appear to attempt a song. 



On June 14th Messrs. Claude Morley & E. A= Elliott captured, 

 at the same locality, a male, which was singing on a frond of 

 bracken. In this case I think it probable that there was a 

 newly emerged female in the immediate neighbourhood, as 

 seems to have been generally the case when males have been 

 noticed on the ferns. On Coronation Day, June 22nd, the 

 weather broke up and, in spite of the fact that it soon returned 

 to its previous torrid condition, I neither heard nor saw any- 

 thing of C. montana afterwards. 



During the past season I have found some six or eight empty 

 nymph-cases, all of which were lying loose on the turf under the 

 bracken, within a space of some three by two j^ards. Careful 

 search was made over a much larger area, but no others were 

 discovered. In previous years they have been much more 

 widely distributed. 



There is little doubt that the majority of recorded specimens, 

 as well as the much larger number of insects that have been 

 captured and sold by local professional entomologists, were 

 taken in the neighbourhood of which I have written ; but it 

 would be absurd to suggest that there are not other breeding- 

 grounds in the New Forest. In 1901 I captured a male near 

 Lady Cross Lodge, some two miles away, and I am indebted to 

 Mr. Claude Morley for calling my attention to a record of a speci- 

 men taken by Mr. W. E. Buckle on June 7th, 1886, near Eufus 

 Stone (Entom. 1886, p. 283), which is at a distance of seven 

 miles. 



In the National Collection are thirteen British specimens of 

 C. montana, particulars of which have been kindly given to me 

 by Mr. Morley. These, I think, may possibly be of interest. 



Two (male and female), New Forest (Bramwell) ; presented 

 by Mrs. MacCulloch in 1856. One, "J. J. Weir," New Forest, 

 1879 ; Douglas Coll. in coll. Mason, bought in 1904. One, New 



