132 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



by which this is effected deserve attention. The wings 

 are long, and pointed towards the end, — a form pecu- 

 liarly adapted for swiftness : in general, they are clear 

 and transparent, but some few from India and Africa 

 have the anterior or largest pair opake and coloured ; 

 in both, however, they are marked by regular distinct 

 nerves, which are divided into large cells towards the 

 thorax, and into numerous smaller ones at the edges. 

 But what more especially distinguishes these insects, 

 when alive, is their faculty of emitting a very loud, and 

 — according to some authors — a not unmusical noise. It 

 may be readily supposed that a power so very unusual 

 among insects, would excite great attention; and we ac- 

 cordingly find that the cicada Avas one of the most 

 celebrated insects of antiquity. Philosophers did not 

 disdain to write upon it; while the fictions of the early 

 poets invested it with perpetual youth, and exalted it to 

 the rank of a demigod. We find the cicada perpe- 

 tually extolled as an emblem of constant gaiety and 

 uninterrupted happiness, as little cheerful beings, " be- 

 loved by gods and men." Anacreon, in his celebrated 

 Ode to the Cicada, describes in glowing colours the un- 

 interrupted felicity of this creature. The Athenian 

 patricians wore golden ornaments representing the ci- 

 cada in their hair, to denote their national antiquity, or 

 to intimate that, like these insects, they were the first-born 

 of the earth. It has been ingeniously remarked, that, in 

 the infant state of music, man seems to have preferred 

 the natural sounds of some animals to those of their 

 uncouth instruments, and that hence arose the extra- 

 vagant praise bestowed upon the cicada. The ancient 

 Locri, a people of Greece, are related to have been so 

 charmed with its song, that they erected a statue to its 

 honour. The following fable, relative to the same 

 people, is too poetic to be passed over. A certain mu- 

 sician of Locris, contesting with another, would have 

 lost the chance of victory, by the breaking of two 

 strings of his lyre, but at this critical moment a cicada 

 flew to his aid, and resting on the broken instrument. 



