34 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



its terminal thread each sounds its cymbal, by depressing 

 it and immediately releasing it, when its own elasticity 

 makes it spring back into shape. These two vibrating 

 scales are the source of the Cigale's cry. 



Do you wish to convince yourself of the efficiency of 

 this mechanism ? Take a Cigale but newly dead and 

 make it sing. IJothing is simpler. Seize one of these 

 muscular columns with the forceps and pull it in a series 

 of careful jerks. The extinct cri-cri comes to life again ; 

 at each jerk there is a clash of the cymbal. The sound 

 is feeble, to be sure, deprived of the amplitude which 

 the living performer is able to give it by means of his 

 resonating chambers ; none the less, the fundamental 

 element of the song is produced by this anatomist's 

 trick. 



Would you, on the other hand, silence a living Cigale ? 

 — that obstinate melomaniac, who, seized in the fingers, 

 deplores his misfortune as loquaciously as ever he sang 

 the joys of freedom in his tree ? It is useless to violate 

 his chapels, to break his mirrors; the atrocious mutilation 

 would not quiet him. But introduce a needle by the 

 lateral aperture which we have named the " window " 

 and prick the cymbal at the bottom of the sound-box. 

 A little touch and the perforated cymbal is silent. A 

 similar operation on the other side of the insect and the 

 insect is dumb, though otherwise as vigorous as before 

 and without any perceptible wound. Any one not in the 

 secret would be amazed at the result of my pin-prick, 

 when the destruction of the mirrors and the other 

 dependencies of the "church" do not cause silence. 

 A tiny perforation of no importance to the insect is 

 more '^ectual than evisceration. 



