404 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



pears only once in seventeen years — makes such a con- 

 tinual din from morning to evening- that people cannot 

 hear each other speak. They appear in Pennsylvania 

 in incredible numbers in the middle of May*. — " In 

 the hotter months of summer," says Dr. Shaw, " espe- 

 cially from midday to the middle of the afternoon, the 

 Cicada, tsttj^, or grasshopper, as we falsely translate 

 it, is perpetually stunning our ears with its most ex- 

 cessively shrill and ungrateful noise. It is in this re- 

 spect the most troublesome and impertinent of insects, 

 perching upon a twig and squalling sometimes two or 

 three hours without ceasing; thereby too often dis- 

 turbing the studies, or short repose that is frequently 

 indulged, in these hot climates, at those hours. The 

 T2TT»^ of the Greeks must have had a quite different 

 voice, more soft surely and melodious ; otherwise the 

 line orators of Homer, who are compared to it, can be 

 looked upon no better than loud loquacious scolds^." — 

 An insect of this tribe, and I am told a very noisy one, 

 has been found by Mr. Daniel Bydder, before men- 

 tioned, in the Ncav Forest, Hampshire. Previously to 

 this it was not thought that any of these insect musi- 

 cians were natives of the British isles. — Captain Han- 

 cock informs me that the Brazilian Cicadse sing so 

 loud as to be heard to the distance of a mile. This is 

 as if a man of ordinary stature, supposing his powers of 

 voice increased in the ratio of his size, could be heard 

 all over the world. So that Stentor hiaiself becomes 

 a mute when compared with these insects. 



You feel very curious, doubtless, to know by what 



• Collinson in Philos. Trans. 1763. Sfoll, C/^a/es, ^6. 

 " Travels, 2d lid, lb6. 



