THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XLIII.] JANUAEY, 1910. [No. 560 



CICADETTA MONTANA. 



By G. Lyle. 



(Plate I.) 



Cicada montana, Scop. = C. hcsmatodes, Linn. = C. orni, Sulz. 

 = C. tibialis, Latr. = C. anglica, Sam. Ent. Comp. et 

 Curt. Brit. Ent. 



From Homer downwards poets have sung the praises of the 

 Cicada, though possibly cicadas and grasshoppers were not 

 distinguished by the ancients, and the words of the poet in 

 honour of Tettix, the singer, may refer as much to the one as 

 to the other. 



In this country, however, the Cicada appears to have been 

 discovered at about the date of the Battle of Waterloo, and 

 probably the first reference to the species as British occurs in 

 Samoulle's * Ent. Useful Compendium,' published in 1819, 

 where we read : " The only species known to inhabit this 

 country was lately discovered by Mr. Daniel Bydder, near the 

 New Forest " {in the New Forest according to Kirby & Spence). 

 Swainson (1835) mentions C angUca as the only British species. 

 Westwood (Class, vol. ii. p. 426, 1834) tells us very little more 

 than that it is found in the New Forest ; that a female was 

 kept in captivity by Dale for two or three days ; that Curtis's 

 name is supposed to be synonymous with C. hcematodes ; and 

 that Weaver found the pupa-case attached by the legs to a stem 

 of a fern, upon the roots of which he, as well as Curtis, sup- 

 posed that the larva feeds. 



Abel Ingpen, " A.L.S. & M.E.S.," gives it among the special 

 rarities to be taken in the New Forest, in his ' Instructions ' of 

 1839. J. K. Wise, in his 'History of the New Forest ' (1862), 

 tells us that it was taken in June, 1858, by a Mr. Farren, who 

 was attracted to it by its peculiar monotonous humming noise. 

 On June 2nd, 1862, he captured two others, which rose from the 

 fern, and at the same time heard two more. 



Houghton says, in his ' Sketches ' (1877, p. 35) : " The 

 English Cicada (C. anglica) " — rather well figured at pi. i. fig. 1 — 



ENTOM. — JANUARY, 1910. B 



