THE CICADA 277 



withstanding our fatigue from having to walk continually for 

 several hours, we were charmed again with the luxuriance of 

 the vegetation. The anivona-palms shot up their slender 

 columns, banded with lines of white on dark green to heights 

 of eighty to a hundred feet, and the traveller's trees were as 

 lofty, in the fierce competition for life. The tree-ferns spread 

 out their graceful fronds over the streams ; and the Vaquois 

 pandanus carried its large clusters of serrated leaves high over- 

 head to get up to the light. In some places the woods were 

 very dense, and there was a green twilight as we passed along 

 the narrow path amongst the crowd of tall trunks. We were 

 struck by the intense silence of the forest ; there was no sound 

 of animal life, and no voice of bird, or beast, or insect broke 

 the oppressive stillness. For six hours and a half we hardly 

 saw a house except isolated woodcutters' huts ; and we were 

 glad at last to see the sparkling waters of the Mananjara 

 in front of us, and to find a village of twenty houses on its 

 banks. 



Although in the cold season, which was the time of our 

 journey, the woods were very silent, they are not so at all times 

 of the year, and among the sounds of the forest we must not 

 omit one which, once heard, can never be forgotten viz. the 

 extremely shrill piercing note of the Jorery, a cicada, which 

 makes the woods ring again with its stridulous reverberations. 

 If it should happen that two or three of these little creatures 

 are giving out their sound together, the jarring, ringing noise 

 becomes almost painful to the ear ; and it is difficult to believe 

 that such a loud noise can be produced from the friction of the 

 wing-cases of such a comparatively small insect, for it does not 

 exceed an inch and a half in length. 



On rainy nights a stridulous sound, but far less loud than 

 that produced by the jorery, is heard in and near the forest, and 

 is produced by a large species of earthworm called Kdnkan- 

 dordka. It somewhat resembles the noise of a rattle, and is far 

 from unpleasant to the ear. 



Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that these compara- 

 tively silent woods are destitute of animal life, and the stillness 

 is largely attributable to the peculiar character of the Mada- 

 gascar fauna. Many of the lemurs are nocturnal animals and 

 are therefore not seen or heard in the daytime. Then again, 



