HEMIPTERA, TOr 



to a certain extent become unbent by means of the elongated 

 haunches which fix them to the body, and clutch firm hold of their 

 prey with the strong claws which terminate the tarsi." 



HOMOPTERA. 



We come now to the second group of the order Hemiptera,' 

 ; namely, Homoptera. 



The insects which compose this division are numerous. They 

 may be arranged into three great families, of the most remarkable 

 members of which we shall give some account. These are the 

 Ckadce, the Aphides or Plant Lice, and the Coccidce. 



The Cicada is the type of the first of these families. It has a 

 deafening and monotonous song ; as Bilboquet says, in the " Saltim- 

 banques," "those who like that note have enough of it for their 

 money." Virgil pronounced a just criticism on the song of the. 

 Cicada : he saw in it nothing better than a hoarse and disagreeable 

 sound . 



''At mecum raucis, tua dum vestigia lustro, • 

 Sole sub ardenti resonant arlDusta cicadis," 



says the Latin poet in his " Eclogues," and repeats the same opinion 

 in a verse in his " Georgics : " — 



** Et cantu querulce vumpent arbusta cicadoe." 



The song of the Cicada, so sharp, so discordant, was, however, the 

 delight of the Greeks. 



Listen to Plato in the first lines of " Phaedo " : " By Here," cries 

 the philosopher-poet, " what a charming place for repose ! . . . . 

 It might well be consecrated to some nymphs and to the river 

 Achelous, to judge by these figures and statues. Taste a little the 

 good air one breathes. How charming, how sweet ! One hears as 

 a summer noise an harmonious murmur accompanying the chorus of 

 the Cicada." 



The Greeks, then, had quite a peculiar taste for the song of the 

 Cicada. They liked to hear its screeching notes, sharp as a point of 

 steel. To enjoy it quite at their ease they shut them up in open 

 wicker-work cages, pretty much in the same way as children shut up 

 the cricket, so as to hear its joyous cri-crt. They carried their love 

 for this insect with the screaming voice so far as to make it Ihe, 

 symbol of music. We see, in drawings emblematical of the musical, 

 art, a Cicada resting on strings of a cythera. A Grecian legend 



