A NOTE ON CICADAS. 
Whitten and Iustrated with Photographs by T. A. GERALD STRICKLAND, F.E.S. 
NICADAS are large, handsome, noisy bugs usually found in warm countries, though one 
/ very scarce species has been met with in the south of England. Perhaps these 
insects are more noted for the music they produce than for any other attribute, though 
the family can also claim distinction from the fact that it contains the longest-lived 
msect known—the Seventeen-Year Cicada.* 
But to return to the musical Cicadidgz, some of these were held in great honour 
by the ancient Greeks on account of the sounds they emitted. Probably the various 
species have different 
voices, aS Opinions vary so 
much as to the pleasant- 
ness or otherwise of their 
vocal entertainments. For 
instance, the Greeks kept 
the creatures in cages on 
account of their sone ; 
one poet spoke of the 
cicada as the ‘‘ Nightingale 
of the Nymphs,” and “to 
excel this animal in sing- 
ing seems to have been 
the highest commendation 
of a singer.” But, on 
the other hand, some 
authors write in quite a 
ditferent strain, comparing 
the cicada’s tones to a 
“combination of threshing- 
machine and frog pond” 
and the “whistle of a 
locomotive,” whilst others 
speak of their “loud shrill 
screech,’ “harsh and 
deafening note,” “bursting 
the very shrubs with thei 
noise,’ etc. Be all this 
as it may, the stridulating 
apparatus of the male, pro- 
ducing the much-discussed 
sounds, 1s of great intricacy 
and interest: it consists, 
speaking non-technically, 
of two marvellously con- 
structed little drums situ- 
CRYPTOTYMPANA IN?TERMEDIA. ated on either side of the 
* See illustrated article on this subject, Vol. IL, page 219.— lp. 
269 
