REAUMUR SUR LES CIGALES. XXlll 



all the examples brought to him were dead, he remarks 

 that the musical organs were not difficult of dissection. 



Keaumur distinguishes three different sjDecies of 

 " les grandes Cigales " in France ; but there are, he 

 notes, numerous smaller allied insects (" les Cigalons"), 

 of which he attempts some classification, which is 

 mainly dependent on their colour and variable markings. 

 He roughly draws the compound ovipositor of the 

 female with its curious saws (" les stigmates du corps") 

 by which she channels the bark of trees or the stems 

 of plants, thus forming grooves within which she 

 deposits her eggs. There seems, however, to be some 

 confusion in his description between the rostra and 

 the ovipositors of these insects. 



Malpighi mistook the sex of the singing insect, and 

 curiously also he drew the complicated details of the 

 ovipositor as appendages to the proper parts of the 

 male organs. 



Eeaumur remarks, "Of course the notion of a true 

 voice in insects is altogether erroneous." The song of 

 the Cigale is neither " di testa" nor " di petto," but 

 is entirely ventral. Still, he says, no air is respired. 

 The musical organs in different species vary in size, 

 whilst in other kinds they are entirely absent, having 

 neither the large inferior scales nor the vibrating 

 drums of the " chirpers." 



A long and elaborate description is then given of 

 the complicated diaphragms, with their attached 

 muscles, and the kind of plectrum by which he declares 

 the drums are made to vibrate ; noticing, also, that 

 long after the death of the insect, these organs 

 (timhales) can be made to emit their sound by the 

 scratching of a fine needle or by a shred of card. 



Reaumur devotes ten pages of his ' Memoires ' to 

 the anatomy of the saws and other parts of the insects. 

 He scornfully attacks a certain M. Pontedera, who 

 seems also to have been engaged in noting the habits 

 of the Cigales, and who asserted that the female, after 

 oviposition, filled the grooves she made for her eggs 



