23 
PAPERS READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY. 
SOME CICADIDES. 
(Read Dec. 21st, 1807, by AMBROSE QUAIL, F.E.S.). 
The Cicadides are insects which interest “ the man in the street.” 
Without enquiring the why or the wherefore, he knows that they 
“ squeak,” and he calls them “ locusts ! ” By the hye, this name is 
erroneously applied to these insects not only in Australia and New 
Zealand but in America also. After all—“what’s in a name?” 
“ Locust ” explains to “ the man in the street ” what Cicada explains 
to the entomologist ; Imt it is probable tliat the former does not know 
that only the males “ squeak,” and that it thei-efore subserves some 
sexual purpose, and similar incidental details relative to the “squeakers.” 
It was a summer evening, when taking a walk through groves of 
magnolias and Qacrcin^ mhar, near the Botanic Gardens at Sydney, 
New South Wales, that I first heard these insects—crrk—^crrrr— 
currrrrrrrrck—lots of it, indiscriminately mixed. It somewhat 
astonished me, so awfully loud was the sound, which one might term 
a rattle. So prone is one to mentally compare and explain phenomena 
according to one’s experience, that I immediately thought the noise 
must be "made by sparrows ; I thought, “ what a plague the sparrows 
must be here ; but where are they ? ” Not a sparrow, scarcely a bird 
even, was to be seen, so I gave up the puzzle and went home to bed. 
Perambulating round the same ground next morning, I noticed on 
many of the tree-trunks what I knew to he the empty pupal skins of 
some insects. Similar skins I had seen in a collection of insects 
from the Himalayas. Cicada pupal skins were they ! Then I under¬ 
stood the noise of the previous evening, for I knew that in the tropics 
Cicadas are amongst the noisiest of insects—they beat sparrows 
hollow. Diligent search only resulted in an occasional imago being 
captured on tree-trunks ; small hoys, who climb the trees for them 
because of their power of making a noise, seldom fail to obtain some 
from among the higher and smaller—probably more succulent— 
branches of the larger trees. 
('lirlorhila aiiatralasia, a greenish species expanding some five 
inches, proved common in the groves of magnolias and oaks ; it is the 
noisiest Cicadid I have yet heard. Once in the Botanic Gardens I 
observed a specimen upon the ground, round about '\^hich a bird was 
Hying, whilst the insect kept up a very loud and continuous “ rattle,” 
possibly with the larger Cicadides some amount of protection from 
their enemies accrues from the loudness of their “ rattle. 
I'idiciiia aiaitdaris, Cierm., a black species with light brown mark¬ 
ings, dark wing neuration, and more prominent eyes, is slightly 
