The Cicada: his Music 



The Red Cicada (C. hematodes) is a little 

 smaller than the Common Cicada. He owes 

 his name to the blood-red colour that takes 

 the place of the other's brown on the veins of 

 the wings and some other lineaments of the 

 body. He is rare. I come upon him occa- 

 sionally in the hawthorn-bushes. As regards 

 his musical apparatus, he stands half-way be- 

 tween the Common Cicada and the Ash 

 Cicada. He has the former's oscillation of 

 the belly, which increases or reduces the 

 strength of the sound by opening or closing 

 the church; he possesses the latter's exposed 

 cymbals, unaccompanied by any sound- 

 chamber or window. 



The cymbals therefore are bare, immedi- 

 ately after the attachment of the hind-wings. 

 They are white, fairly regular in their con- 

 vexity and boast eight long, parallel nervures 

 of a ruddy brown and seven others which are 

 much shorter and which are inserted singly 

 in the intervals between the first. The lids 

 are small and scolloped at their inner edge 

 so as to cover only half of the corresponding 

 chapel. The opening left by the hollow in 

 the lid has as a shutter a little pallet fixed 

 to the base of the hind-leg, which, by folding 

 itself against the body or lifting slightly, 

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