No. 635] SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 549 



less series of sounds, which to me seem best described by the syl- 



see — see. ' ' The entire series of notes is hurriedly delivered and 

 does not. usually last over 8 to 10 seconds. The first notes of the 

 series — "it-see — it-see " — usually begin slowly and are somewhat 

 subdued in character. The syllables ' ' it-see ' ' gradually increase 

 in loudness, and finally decrease somewhat in intensity, as they 

 run into the shorter, more subduel syllables "see — see — see- 

 see" which terminate the complete "song." The notes of this 

 form are soft and lisping in eharaeter, and remind one of the 

 noise of steam escaping intermittently, as one sometimes hears it 

 around a locomotive. 



During the height of the "song" season, one could rarely dis- 

 tinguish the notes of any individual, for the myriads of "voices" 

 blended into a volume of soft, murmurous sound — a veritable 

 atmosphere of sound which seemed everywhere to invest the trees 

 and landscape from daybreak till darkness. It was a steady, 

 droning, unceasing hum like the even whirr of machinery. The 

 trees in the National Cemetery were fairly swarming with these 

 creatures and their steady, murmurous chorus could be heard 

 from morning until night, at a distance becoming softened and 

 subdued, and reminding one of the soft murmurs heard when a 

 big sea shell is held to one's ears. 



Although the periodical cicada usually becomes silent after 

 sundown, a great nocturnal chorus is sometimes initiated and a 

 remarkable wave of sound invests the night for a time. On the 

 night of May 31, I heard a most memorable, nocturnal chorus of 

 this character, which began just before 2 a.m., solar time. One 

 or two singers in the oak trees in my back yard initiated the con- 

 cert. Others joined in, and there was a gradual swelling in the 

 volume of sound until it seemed as if all the creatures in these 

 trees were in full song. The concert did not stop here, for I 

 heard it passing on to the big woods toward tulip poplar swamp, 

 until the nighttime was fairly tilled with murmurous sound. 

 Gradually the crest of the wave passed outward into the more 

 distant woods, while it subsided slowly in the trees in my back 

 yard where the musical impulse appeared to originate. After 



