404 NOISES OF INSECTS. 
only once in seventeen years—makes such a continual 
din from morning to evening that people cannot hear 
each other speak. They appear in Pennsylvania in 
incredible numbers in the middle of May*.—“ In the 
hotter months of summer,” says Dr. Shaw, “ especially 
from midday to the middle of the afternoon, the Cicada, 
tetti£, or grasshopper, as we falsely translate it, is per- 
petually stunning our ears with its most excessively shrill 
and ungrateful noise. It is in this respect the most 
troublesome and impertinent of insects, perching upon a 
twig and squalling sometimes two or three hours without 
ceasing; thereby too often disturbing the studies, or 
short repose that is frequently indulged, in these hot 
climates, at those hours. ‘The terrié of the Greeks must 
have had a quite different voice, more soft surely and 
melodious; otherwise the fine orators of Homer, who 
are compared to it, can be looked upon no better than 
loud loquacious scolds>.”—An insect of this tribe, and I 
am told a very noisy one, has been found by Mr. Daniel 
Bydder, before mentioned, in the New Forest, Hamp-. 
shire. Previously to this it was not thought that any of 
these insect musicians were natives of the British Isles.— 
Captain Hancock informs me that the Brazilian Cicadze 
sing so loud as to be heard at the distance of a mile. 
This is as if a man of ordinary stature, supposing his 
powers of voice increased in the ratio of his size, could 
be heard all over the world. So that Stentor himself 
becomes a mute when compared with these insects. 
You feel very curious, doubtless, to know by what 
means these little animals are enabled to emit such pre- 
* Collinson in Philos. Trans. 1763. Stoll, Cigales, 26. 
> Travels, 2d Ed. 186. 
