1900.]} INSECTS OF THE ‘‘ SKEAT EXPEDITION.” 861 
to the word “riang” (to call back) pronounced very rapidly and 
repeatedly. All four species of beetle are on sale for food in the 
local markets of Patalung, and their grubs, which are found in 
the earth or under fallen trees, are eaten also. (A conventional 
representation of the grubs is often carved on rice-stirrers and 
other objects of household use by the Malays, who call them “‘ Ulat 
Kiki.”) Both beetles and Cicade are either boiled or fried in 
cocoanut-oil. The latter have very little flavour of any sort, and 
what they have is vegetable rather than animal. 
Remarks.—The existence of auditory organs in the Cicads has 
not been demonstrated with certainty. The insects must indeed 
be deaf if they mistake the sound of clapping for the squeaky 
whirr of the male’s stridulation. It is evident, however, that the 
females have some perception of rhythm, if not of sound. May 
not this perception be due to vibrations produced in the opercula 
of the stridulating apparatus? The opercula are often well 
developed in the voiceless females, though they differ in shape from 
those of the males. The males, supposing that the perceptive 
organ were situated in the stridulating apparatus, would be 
deafened by their own song; as Sharp points out when dealing 
with Swinton’s theory that one of the membranes of the apparatus 
itself, a membrane which apparently is only present in the male, 
is an auditory organ. But there is no need for the males to hear 
their own song, and no proof that they do so. Though only one 
species of Cicada is attracted by the particular rhythm with which 
the people of Patalung clap their hands, another rhythm might 
attract another form. The several species of Cicade inhabiting 
the same country undoubtedly sing in different rhythm’ from one 
another. The song of this species is fairly monotonous and 
unbroken, though it rises and falls to a slight extent. That of the 
large form Pomponia imperatoria, which restricts itself to deep 
jungle, rises in a series of trills, each of which concludes with a 
kind of click. Each section of the song is faster, louder, and 
clearer than the one which preceded it; until, about five minutes 
after the Cicada’s settling, the noise suddenly comes to an end, as 
the insect flies off to another tree, where it commences again. 
The sound produced by this species is, at the beginning of the 
song, like the winding-up of a large clock, and ends by being 
comparable to the notes of a penny whistle. Another insect, 
commonly heard at night in the jungle, presumably also a Cicada, 
has a clear, loud, clarion-like ca!l which can be heard for a great 
distance. 
The sounds in a Malayan jungle after dark may justly be com- 
pared to those in the machinery-hall of an exhibition at the busiest 
time of day, and their volume increases materially before the coming 
of dawn. The body of the din is the work of small Cicada, like the 
edible species, but the true riang-riang and certain Locustids have 
no mean share in its production. In some places the ‘“ Singing 
1 See Riley, Proc. Amer. Assoc. Ady. Science, vol. xxiv. p. 331. 
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