860 MR. NELSON ANNANDALE ON THE [Dec. 4, 



out from the undergrowth of the surrounding orchards and jungle, 

 and alighted on the persons of their captors, who had no difficulty 

 in picking off the insects with their fingers and securing them, 

 still alive, in a fold of their draperies. The clapping only con- 

 tinued for about half an hour every evening, and when, with 

 considerable difficulty, I persuaded the men to recommence it 

 again later in the night, not a single Cicada came near them, 

 though the stridulating had now become loud all over the village, 

 like the noise of machine hair-brushes in a barber's shop. 



The insects were silent on the wing, and I only heard one 

 stridulate when caught. The voiceless females, as might be 

 expected, were in great preponderance over the males among the 

 specimens taken ; probably the one individual which was not 

 dumb when captured was the only male taken that night. In 

 order to be sure that the fire was not the chief attraction for 

 the Cicada?, I stood among a party of natives who were clapping, 

 together with another member of the Expedition, who clapped 

 also ; while I kept my hands still. In the course of a few minutes, 

 the natives captured many specimens, and ten alighted on my 

 friend's coat ; but only one settled on mine. Afterwards I heard 

 from a Patani Malay that the children of Patani town have 

 a game in which they attract Cicadas by clapping their hands, and 

 without the aid of light at all ; though they sing, as they clap, a 

 nursery rhyme, calling upon the insects to come down from the 

 trees. The season of the edible Cicada seems to be a very local 

 one in Patalung. At Ban Nah on the 1st of April, and again on 

 the 6th of the same month, the natives secured me as many 

 specimens as I wanted, besides serving a dish of them with our 

 curry on the second occasion. On April 3rd, at Ban Kong Bah, 

 which is only about eight miles further inland than Ban Nab, our 

 guard of native military police were unable to catch a single 

 individual, although they adopted exactly the same method of 

 procedure as the Ban Nah people had done, and clapped at the 

 same time of evening. On none of these three occasions had the 

 moon risen, and in Patalung one night is like another in the dry 

 season. On April 5th, I noticed that the ground in a patch 

 of primaeval jungle near Ban Kong Bah was covered with the 

 cast pupal skins of a Cicada. Whether they were those of the 

 edible species or not, I am unable to say with certainty, but they 

 were of the correct size, and, so far as I could see, such as might be 

 expected to belong to this form. 



Malay Name, etc. — The Malay-speaking Malays of lower Siam 

 call a Cicada " Biang-riang," confusing it with certain large 

 Melolonthid beetles belonging to at least four different species — 

 Lepidiota stigma, another species of the same genus, and two 

 species of Leucopholis — which buzz round the tops of the cocoanut- 

 palms in the evening, and produce, probably in the same way as 

 the common Cockchafer 1 , a sound with a considerable resemblance 



1 See Lubbock, ' The Senses of Animals,' p. 07. 



