The Life of the Grasshopper 



keeps the aperture either shut or open. The 

 other Cicadae have each a similar appendage, 

 but in their case it is narrower and more 

 pointed. 



Moreover, as with the Common Cicada, 

 the belly moves freely up and down. This 

 heaving movement, combined with the play of 

 the femoral pallets, opens and closes the 

 chapels to varying extents. 



The mirrors, though not so large as the 

 Common Cicada's, have the same appear- 

 ance. The membrane that faces them on the 

 thorax side is white, oval and very delicate 

 and is tight-stretched when the abdomen is 

 raised and flabby and wrinkled when the ab- 

 domen is lowered. In its tense state it seems 

 capable of vibration and of increasing the 

 sound. 



The song, modulated and subdivided into 

 strophes, suggests that of the Common 

 Cicada, but is much less objectionable. Its 

 lack of shrillness may well be due to the 

 absence of any sound-chambers. Other 

 things being equal, cymbals vibrating unco- 

 vered cannot possess the same intensity of 

 sound as those vibrating at the far end of an 

 echoing vestibule. The noisy Ash Cicada 

 also, it is true, lacks that vestibule; but he 



72 



