324 



NOISES OF INSECTS. 



no marginal hairs — is clearly a continuation of the substance 

 of the segment. This apparatus so much resembles the drum 

 of the Cicadas, that there can be little doubt as to its use. 

 The vibrations caused by the friction of the thighs and elytra 

 striking upon this drum are reverberated by it, and so in- 

 tenseness is given to the sound. 1 In Spain, we are told that 

 people of fashion keep these animals — called there Grillo 

 — in cages, which they name Grilleria, for the sake of their 

 song. 2 



I shall conclude this diatribe upon the noises of insects 

 with a tribe that have long been celebrated for their musical 

 powers : I mean the Cicadiadce, including the genera Fulgora, 

 Cicada, Tettix, and Tettigonia. 3 The FulgorcE appear to be 

 night singers, while the Cicadce sing usually in the day. The 

 great lantern-fly (Fulgora laternaria), from its noise in the 

 evening — nearly resembling the sound of a cymbal, or razor- 

 grinder when at work — is called Scare-sleep by the Dutch in 

 Guiana, It begins regularly at sunset. 4 Perhaps an insect 

 mentioned by Ligon as making a great noise in the night, in 

 Barbadoes, may belong to this tribe. " There is a kind of 

 animal in the woods," says he, " that I never saw, which lie 

 all day in holes and hollow trees, and as soon as the sun is 

 down begin their tunes, which are neither singing nor crying, 

 but the shrillest voices I ever heard : nothing can be so nearly 

 resembled to it as the mouths of a pack of small beagles at a 

 distance ; and so lively and chirping the noise is as nothing 

 can be more delightful to the ears, if there were not too much 

 of it; for the music has no intermission till morning, and 

 then all is husht." 5 



The species of the other genus, Cicada, called by the an- 

 cient Greeks — -by whom they were often kept in cages for 

 the sake of their song — Tettix, seem to have been the favou- 

 rites of every Grecian bard from Homer and Hesiod to Ana- 



1 Goureau {op. cit.) and Miiller (Burmeister, Manual, 572.) regard this 

 drum as an auditory organ, but probably without sufficient grounds. 



2 Osbeck's Voy. i. 71. 3 Zoolog. Journ. No. iv. 429. 



4 Stedman's Surinam, ii. 37. Dr. Hancock, however {Proceed. Zool. Soc. 

 June 24. 1834), states that the razor-grinder, or aria-aria of the natives, is a spe- 

 cies of Cicada ( C. clarisona), and that the Fulgorce rarely sing. 



5 Hist, of Barbadoes, 65. 



