32 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



that he has broken his mirrors (a li mirau creba). The 

 same phrase is used of a poet without inspiration. 

 Acoustics give the He to the popular belief. You may 

 break the mirrors, remove the covers with a snip of the 

 scissors, and tear the yellow anterior membrane, but 

 these mutilations do not silence the song of the Cigale ; 

 they merely change its quality and weaken it. The 

 chapels are resonators ; they do not produce the sound, 

 but merely reinforce it by the vibration of their anterior 

 and posterior membranes ; while the sound is modified 

 by the dampers as they are opened more or less widely. 



The actual source of the sound is elsewhere, and is 

 somewhat difficult for a novice to find. On the outer 

 wall of either chapel, at the ridge formed by the junction 

 of back and belly, is a tiny aperture with a horny cir- 

 cumference masked by the overlapping damper. We 

 will call this the window. This opening gives access 

 to a cavity or sound-chamber, deeper than the '^ chapels," 

 but of much smaller capacity. Immediately behind the 

 attachment of the posterior wings is a slight pro- 

 tuberance, almost egg-shaped, which is distinguishable, 

 on account of its dull black colour, from the neigh- 

 bouring integuments, which are covered with a silvery 

 down. This protuberance is the outer wall of the sound- 

 chamber. 



Let us cut it boldly away. We shall then lay bare the 

 mechanism which produces the sound, the cymbal. This 

 is a small dry, white membrane, oval in shape, convex 

 on the outer side, and crossed along its larger diameter 

 by a bundle of three or four brown nervures, which give 

 it elasticity. Its entire circumference is rigidly fixed. 

 Let us suppose that this convex scale is pulled out of 



