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V 
THE SONG OF THE CICADA. 
By JOHN C. GALTON, M.A., F.L.S. 
[PLATE X.] 
(l Siissen Friihlings siisser Bote ! 
Ja, dicli lieben alle Musen, 
Phobus selber muss dicb lieben, 
Gaben dir die Silberstimme.” — Goethe. From Anacreon. 
u The Cicada, people of tbe pine, 
Making tbeir summer life one ceaseless song.” — Bykoh. 
HE song of the Cicada* has been familiar to man from the 
most ancient times. Among the Greeks this insect was 
the object of a veritable u cultus,” and for the enjoyment of its 
song it was imprisoned in a cage, just as are the song-birds of 
more modern times.f A Cicada sitting upon a harp was the 
emblem of the science of music ; for the story goes that when 
the two rival musicians Eunomus and Ariston were contending 
upon the harp for a prize, a Cicada, flying to the former and 
perching upon his instrument, supplied by its voice the place of 
a broken string, and thus secured to him the victory 4 Anacreon 
* Tbe Latin name cicada is derived, according to Beckmann, from tbe 
word cicum or ciccum, “a tbin skin,” and abeiv, signifying a sound produced 
by tbe motion of a pellicle. Others derive it from tbe Latin words cito 
oadat, implying that tbe insect soon vanishes, is short-lived. Westwood’s 
“ Classification of Insects,” Vol. ii. p. 421. 
t Such is still tbe custom in China. This can hardly, however, be ac- 
cepted as a criterion of musical taste. 
X 11 Kirby and Spence’s Entomology,” Vol. ii. p. 403. Winckelmann, how- 
ever, tbe celebrated German art critic, makes the statement (“Versuch einer 
Allegorie,” Werke, Band II. s. 529), that an indifferent bard was symbolized 
by a Cicada. This, however, he appears further on (Ibid. s. 548) to con- 
tradict by saying that Music is represented upon coins of the Messenians in 
Arcadia, where, according to the testimony of Polybius, it was practised 
more than among all the Greeks, by the same insect. In an editorial foot- 
