172 
NATUKAL HISTORY OP SELBOENE. 
may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. It is 
remarkable; that though these insects are furnished with long legs 
RIVULET IN SHORT LITHE. 
behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like grasshoppers ; yet when 
driven from their holes they show no activity, but crawl along in a 
shiftless manner, so as easily to be taken ; and again, though provided 
with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them when 
there seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only make that 
shrilling noise, perhaps, out of rivalry and emulation, as is the case 
with many animals which exert some sprightly note during their 
breeding time. It is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against the 
other.* They are solitary beings, living singly male and female, each as 
it may happen ; but there must be a time when the sexes have some 
intercourse, and then the wings may be useful perhaps during the 
hours of night. When the males meet they will fight fiercely, as I 
* Xenarchus, the Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, flourished about 
B.C. 330 ; in his play, yclept v7B-vo<i, or " Sleep," he thus felicitates the male cicadas, — 
cov roils yjvoii^iv oiiZ' oricvv i^aivyis ivi 
*' Happy the cicadas' lives 
Since they all have tongueless wives. " 
