500 NOISES OF INSECTS. 
broken string, and so secured to him the victory.1 To excel this anima} 
in singing seems to have been the highest commendation of a singer ; and 
even the eloquence of Plato was not thought to suffer by a comparison 
with it.2 At Surinam the noise of the Cicada Tibicen is still supposed so 
much to resemble the sound of a harp or lyre, that they are called there 
harpers (Lierman).§ Whether the Grecian Cicade maintain at present 
their ancient character for music, travellers do not tell us. 
Those of other countries, however, have been held in less estimation for 
their powers of song ; or rather have been execrated for the deafening din 
that they produce. Virgil accuses those of Italy of bursting the very 
shrubs with their noise4; and Sir J. E. Smith observes that this species, 
which is very common, makes a most disagreeable dull chirping.® Another, 
Cicada septendecim—which fortunately, as its name imports, appears only 
once in seventeen years—makes such a continual din from morning to 
evening that people cannot hear each other speak. They appear in Penn- 
sylvania 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, rev7t%, or grasshopper, as we falsely translate 
it, is perpetually stunning our ears with its most excessively shrill and un- 
grateful 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 rermé 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 (Cicada Anglica Curtis *) in the New 
Forest, Hampshire. 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 Cicade 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 prodigious sounds. I have lately men- 
tioned to you the drum of certain grasshoppers: this, however, appears to 
be an organ of a very simple structure ; but since it is essential to the 
economy of the Cicade that their males should so much exceed all other 
insects in the loudness of their tones, they are furnished with a much more 
complex, and indeed most wonderful, apparatus, which I shall now describe. 
If you look at the under side of the body of a male, the first thing that will 
strike you is a pair of large plates of an irregular form—in some semi-oval, 
in others triangular, in others again a segment of a circle of greater or less 
diameter—covering the anterior part of the belly, and fixed to the trunk 
1 Mouffet, Theatr. 130. 2'HOovewrog Waarav, xo rerrikiy irohwaor. 
3 Merian, Surinam, 49. 
4 «Ht cantu querule rumpent arbusta cicade.” Georg. iii. 828. 
5 Smith’s Tour, iii. 95. 
6 Collinson in Philos. Trans. 1768. Stoll, Cigales, 26. 
7 Travels, 24 ed. 186. 8 Brit. Ent. t. 114. 
