36 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



notes are heard about seven or eight o'clock in the 

 morning, and the orchestra ceases only when the twi- 

 light fails, about eight o'clock at night. The concert 

 lasts a whole round of the clock. But if the sky is grey 

 and the wind chilly the Cigale is silent. 



The second species, only half the size of the common 

 Cigale, is known in Provence as the Cacan ; the name 

 being a fairly exact imitation of the sound emitted by 

 the insect. This is the Cigale of the flowering ash, far 

 more alert and far more suspicious than the common 

 species. Its harsh, loud song consists of a series of cries 

 — can ! can ! can ! can ! — with no intervals of silence 

 subdividing the poem into stanzas. Thanks to its 

 monotony and its harsh shrillness, it is a most odious 

 sound, especially when the orchestra consists of hundreds 

 of performers, as is often the case in my two plane-trees 

 during the dog-days. It is as though a heap of dry 

 walnuts were being shaken up in a bag until the shells 

 broke. This painful concert, which is a real torment, 

 offers only one compensation : the Cigale of the flower- 

 ing ash does not begin his song so early as the common 

 Cigale, and does not sing so late in the evening. 



Although constructed on the same fundamental 

 principles, the vocal organs exhibit a number of peculi- 

 arities which give the song its special character. The 

 sound-box is lacking, which suppresses the entrance to 

 it, or the window. The cymbal is uncovered, and is 

 visible just behind the attachment of the hinder wing, 

 and crossed by a bundle of fine reddish-brown 

 nervures. 



From the forward side of the first segment of the 



