

NOISES OF INSECTS. 397 



striking upon this drum, are reverberated by it, and so 

 intenseness is given to the sound. In Spain, we are told 

 that people of fashion keep these animals called there 

 Grillo in cages, which they name Grilleria, for the sake 

 of their song a . 



I shall conclude this diatribe upon the noises of in- 

 sects, with a tribe that have long been celebrated for 

 their musical powers : I mean the Cicadiadce, including 

 the genera Fulgora, Cicada, Tettix, and Tettigonia b . 

 The Fulgorce appear to be night-singers, while the CV- 

 cadte sing usually in the day. The great lantern-fly 

 (Fulgora laternaria), from its noise in the evening 

 nearly resembling the sound of a cymbal, or razor- 

 grinder when at work is called Scare-sleep by the 

 Dutch in Guiana. It begins regularly at sun-set c . 

 Perhaps an insect mentioned by Ligon as making a 

 great noise in the night in Barbadoes, may belong to 

 this tribe. " There is a kind of animal in the woods," 

 says he, " that I never saw, which lie all day in holes 

 and hollow trees, and as soon as the sun is down begin 

 their tunes, which are neither singing nor crying, but 

 the shrillest voices I ever heard : nothing can be so 

 nearly resembled to it as the mouths of a pack of small 

 beagles at a distance ; and so lively and chirping the 

 noise is, as nothing can be more delightful to the ears, 

 if there were not too much of it ; for the music hath no 

 intermission till morning, and then all is husht d ." 



The species of the other genus, Cicada, called by the 

 ancient Greeks by whom they were often kept in cages 

 for the sake of their song Tettix, seem to have been 



a Osbeck's Voy. i. 71. * Zoolog. Journ. n. iv. 429-. 



6 S$ edmaii's Surinam, ii. 37. * Hist, of Barbadoes, 65. 



