The Life of the Grasshopper 



bubble and called the mirror (mirau) in the 

 Provencal tongue. 



The church, the mirrors and the lids are 

 commonly regarded as the sound-producing 

 organs. Of a singer short of breath it is 

 said that he has cracked his mirrors (a li 

 mirau creba). Picturesque language says 

 the same thing of an uninspired poet. 

 Acoustics give the lie to the popular belief. 

 You can break the mirrors, remove the lids 

 with a cut of the scissors, tear the yellow 

 front membrane and these mutilations will 

 not do away with the Cicada's song: they 

 simply modify it, weaken it slightly. The 

 chapels are resonators. They do not pro- 

 duce sound, they increase it by the vibrations 

 of their front and back membranes; they 

 change it as their shutters are opened more 

 or less wide. 



The real organ of sound is seated else- 

 where and is not easy to find, for a novice. 

 On the other side of each chapel, at the ridge 

 joining the belly to the back, is a slit bounded 

 by horny walls and masked by the lowered 

 lid. Let us call it the window. This open- 

 ing leads to a cavity or sound-chamber deeper 

 than the adjacent chapel, but much less wide. 

 Immediately behind the attachment of the 

 60 



