$00 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



broken string, and so secured to him the victory. 1 To excel this animal 

 in singing seems to have been the highest commendation of a singer ; and 

 ven the eloquence of Plato was not thought to suffer by a comparison 

 with it. 2 At Surinam the noise of the Cicada Tibicen is still supposed so 

 much to resemble the sound of a harp or lyre, that they are called there 

 harpers (Lierman). 5 Whether the Grecian Cicadas maintain at present 

 their ancient character for music, travellers do not tell us. 



Those of other countries, however, have been held in less estimation for 

 their powers of song ; or rather have been execrated for the deafening din 

 that they produce. Virgil accuses those of Italy of bursting the very 

 shrubs with their noise 4 ; and Sir J. E. Smith observes that this species, 

 which is very common, makes a most disagreeable dull chirping. 5 Another, 

 Cicada septendecim which fortunately, as its name imports, appears only 

 once in seventeen years makes such a continual din from morning to 

 evening that people cannot hear each other speak. They appear in Penn- 

 sylvania in incredible numbers in the middle of May. 6 " In the hotter 

 months of summer," says Dr. Shaw, " especially from midday to the middle 

 of the afternoon, the Cicada, rrn, or grasshopper, as we falsely translate 

 it, is perpetually stunning our ears with its most excessively shrill and un- 

 grateful noise. It is in this respect the most troublesome and impertinent 

 of insects, perching upon a twig and squalling sometimes two or three 

 hours without ceasing; thereby too often disturbing the studies, or short 

 repose that is frequently indulged, in these hot climates, at those hours. 

 The rrri of the Greeks must have had a quite different voice, more soft, 

 surely, and melodious ; otherwise the fine orators of Homer, who are 

 compared to it, can be looked upon no better than loud loquacious scolds." 7 

 An insect of this tribe, and I am told a very noisy one, has been found by 

 Mr. Daniel Bydder, before mentioned (Cicada Anglica Curtis 8 ) in the New 

 Forest, Hampshire. Previously to this it was not thought that any of 

 these insect musicians were natives of the British Isles. Captain Hancock 

 informs me that the Brazilian Cicadae sing so loud as to be heard at the 

 distance of a mile. This is as if a man of ordinary stature, supposing his 

 powers of voice increased in the ratio of his size, could be heard all over 

 the world. So that Stentor himself becomes a mute when compared with 

 these insects. 



You feel very curious, doubtless, to know by what means these little 

 animals are enabled to emit such prodigious sounds. I have lately men- 

 tioned to you the drum of certain grasshoppers : this, however, appears to 

 be an organ of a very simple structure ; but since it is essential to the 

 economy of the Cicadae that their males should so much exceed all other 

 insects in the loudness of their tones, they are furnished with a much more 

 complex, and indeed most wonderful, apparatus, which I shall now describe. 

 If you look at the under side of the body of a male, the first thing that will 

 strike you is a pair of large plates of an irregular form in some semi-oval, 

 in others triangular, in others again a segment of a circle of greater or less 

 diameter covering the anterior part of the belly, and fixed to the trunk 



1 Mouffet, Theatr. 130. 2 'H5u;rTOj ITAaTav, xat nrn&v 



5 Merian, Surinam, 49. 



4 " Et cantu querulae rumpent arbusta cicada;." Georg. iii. 328. 



5 Smith's Tour, iii. 95. 



Collinsonin P/dlos. Trans. 1763. Stoll, Cigales, 26. 

 ^ Travels, 2d ed. 186. 8 ^rU. Ent. t. 114. 



