June, 1915 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 55 



was the melody of the insect mentioned by almost every classic 

 writer and known as the Tettix. Its song raised it to a place in 

 the constellations, took it under the special protection of the 

 Muses, seated it on the thrones of Pallas and Phoebus Apollo. 

 Yet in almost every English translation this name is rendered as 

 " grasshopper." The word is one of the many attempts at imita- 

 tion in letters of a natural sound. A close English analogy is 

 tattler, prattler. The Romans called the insect Cicada, with the 

 same attempt at sound imitation, the c doubtless pronounced like 

 the soft ch of chirp. The direct English congener of this is 

 chatter. The Greek word describing its song is lalageei. Note 

 the repeated syllable. When the amorous Horace sings of his 

 Greek slave, his words are : " Oh, my heart, my Cicada 

 chatterbox." 



"The song of the Tettix," says the oldest Greek poet, "all 

 orators should copy." Theocritus cries in rapture to his sweet- 

 heart : " Love, thou singest more sweetly than the Tettix." 

 Latreille, the great French naturalist of a century ago, calls it 

 tibicen, the flute player. Vergil declared that its sound annoyed 

 his ears most horribly. A modern writer on natural history 

 likens it to the noise of a stick drawn rapidly along a picket fence. 



Homer speaks of the Dogfly leading Ares, — this of the Tettix 

 in the stars. When Sirius is in ascendant, Tettix sings loudest 

 and best. It is the same here and now. The shrill song of the 

 cicada is best in the dog days. When it is heard in the morning 

 we know a long hot day is ahead. 



Among the few golden ornaments recovered from ancient times 

 are a number of figures of the Cicada. These were called by the 

 Greeks Chrysotettix. The Athenian ladies, who wore them as 

 ornaments in their hair, observed the myth that before mankind 

 arrived in Greece the Tettix was the original inhabitant, the 

 autocthone. Hence the wearers of the Chrysotettix were mem- 

 bers of the oldest families. In imperial Rome the custom was 

 adopted for families whose genealogy went back to the glory of 

 free citizenship under the republic. Woe to the upstart, the 

 nouveau riche, who might wrongfully don one. Were the symbol 



