34 HEMIPTERA. 



ui many poetical fictions concerning it ; and particularly when they affirmed that it 

 subsisted on dew. They have told us that it lives among trees,* which circumstance 

 discountenances the opinion of those moderns who imagine the grashoppersj were the 

 Cicadas of the ancients. 



Neither were they ignorant that the males only were furnished with those instruments 

 which externally appear to produce its sound, or the purpose for which that sound was 

 emitted ;t though it was reserved for more accurate naturalists to discover the complex 

 organs by which it was caused and modulated. Aldrovandus, near two centuries ago, 

 described the lamellae, which he compares to the fruit of some herbs, called by modern 

 botanists Thlaspi.^ 



Among later naturalists who have noticed the Cicadse of foreign countries, are Me- 

 rian,|| Margravius,^" &c. Merian says, its tune resembles the sound of a lyre which is 

 heard at a distance ; and that the Dutch in the plantations of Surinam (where they are 

 very plentiful) call it the Lyre-player.** Margravius, in his natural history of Brazil, 

 compares it to the sound of a vibrating wire : he says the tune begins with Gir, guir, 

 and continues with Sis, sis, sis. One species is called Kakkerlakft m trie Indies, perhaps 

 because the sound emitted by it may be likened to the pronunciation of that word. Mr. 



* Dr. Martyn supposed this refers to the smaller branches in hedges, rather than to the lofty trees in 

 forests : we cannot entirely coincide with that opinion. 



t Grashopper. Cicada. They live almost every where in hot countries. Lovel. Hist. Animal, containing 

 the summe of all authors ancient and modern, p. 274, Sj-c. fyc. 



Cicada, a Sauterel'.e," or, according to others, a balm cricket. — Non est quod vulgo, a grashopper, vocamus ; 

 sed insectum longe diversum, corpore et rotundiore et breviore, qui arbusculis insidet et sonum quadruplo ma- 

 jorum edit, a grashopper, recte locustum reddideris, Mori ex Ray. Ainsworth. 



t Xenarchus, an old Grecian play-writer, used to say jocosely, that " the Cicadse were very happy because 

 they had silent wives." Aristotle also knew the sexual difference of them; he mentions them as a delicious 

 food : he preferred the males wdien young, but more so the females before she laid her eggs. 



§ Thalaspi parvum Hieraciifolium, sive Lunariam luteam Monspel. et Leucoium luteum marinum. Lobe/. 

 Stirpium Adversaria nova, p. 74. — Aldrov, 



|| Merian. Insecta Surinamensia. 



H Georgi Margravii rer. nat. Brasiliae. Lib. 1 . p. 257. 



** De Lierman. 



ft Scopoli, Cam. Yeats describes the Kakkerlak of the American islands as a species of Blatta, cock-roaches. 

 Are there not two insects of that name ?— one of them is, we believe, a Blatta. Indeed, Latreille has made 

 use of the name Kakkerlak for a genus of Blattidoa. 



* Sauterelle, sorte d'insecte. A locust or grashopper. Boyer.— Cigale, a flying insect. The Cicada of 

 the ancients, unknown in England. Boyer. 



