To excel the Cicada in singing was the highest commendation of a singer, and the music of Plato's eloquence was only comparable to the voice of this insect. Homer compared his good orators to the Cicada, "which, in the woods, sitting on a tree, send forth a delicate voice." But Virgil speaks of them as insects of a disagreeable and stridulous tone, and accuses them of bursting the very shrubs with their noise,
Et cantu querulae rumpent arbusta Cicadae.
Moufet says: "The Cicadas, abounding in the end of spring, do foretel a sickly year to come, not that they are the cause of putrefaction in themselves, but only shew plenty of putrid matter to be, when there is such store of them appear. Oftentimes their coming and singing doth portend the happy state of things: so also says Theocritus. Niphus saith that what year but few of them are to be seen, they presage dearness of victuals, and scarcity of all things else.
"The Egyptians, by a Cicada painted, understood a priest and an holy man; the latter makers of hieroglyphics sometimes will have them to signifie musicians, sometimes pratlers or talkative companions, but very fondly. How ever the matter be, the Cicada hath sung very well of herself, in my judgement, in this following distich:
Although I am an insect very small, Yet with great virtue am endow'd withall."
Sir G. Staunton, in his account of China, remarks: "The shops of Hai-tien, in addition to necessaries, abounded in toys and trifles, calculated to amuse the rich and idle of both sexes, even to cages containing insects, such as the noisy Cicada, and a large species of the Gryllus."
S. Wells Williams tells us that the Chinese boys often capture the male Cicada of their country, and tie a straw around the abdomen, so as to irritate the sounding apparatus, and carry it through the streets in this predicament, to the great annoyance of every one, for the stridulous sound of this insect is of deafening loudness.
When in Quincy, Illinois, in the summer of 1864, I was shown by a boy a toy, which he called a "Locust," with which he imitated the loud rattling noise of the Cicada septemdecim with great accuracy. It consisted of a horse-hair tied to the end of a short stick, and looped in a cap of stiff writing-paper placed over the hole of a spool. To make the sound, then, the toy was whirled rapidly through the air, when the stiff paper acted as a sounding-board to the vibrating hair.
At Surinam, Madame Merian tells us, the noise of the Cicada tibicen is still supposed to resemble the sound of a harp or lyre, and hence called the Lierman — the harper. Another species, in Ceylon, which makes the forest re-echo with a long-sustained noise so curiously resembling that of a cutler's wheel, has acquired the highly appropriate name of the Knife-grinder.
It is said of our Cicada septemdecim, the so-called, but very improperly, "Seventeen-year Locust," that, when they first leave the earth, when they are plump and full of juices, they have been made use of in the manufacture of soap.
The larva of a Chinese species of Cicada, the Flata limbata, which scarcely exceeds the domestic fly in size, forms a sort of grease, which adheres to the branches of trees and hardens into wax. In autumn the natives scrape this substance, which they call Pela, from off the trees, melt, purify, and form it into cakes. It is white and glossy in appearance, and, when mixed with oil, is used to make candles, and is said to be superior to the common wax for use. The physicians employ it in several diseases; and the Chinese, as we are informed by the Abbe Grosier, when they are about to speak in public, or when any occasion is likely to occur on which it may be necessary to have assurance and resolution, eat an ounce of it to prevent swoonings or palpitations of the heart.
On the large cheese-like cakes of this wax, hanging in the grocers' and tallow-chandlers' shops at Hankow, are often seen the inscription written: "It mocks at the frost, and rivals the snow." The price, in 1858, was forty dollars a picul, or about fifteen pence a pound.
The Greeks, notwithstanding their veneration for the Cicada, made these insects an article of food, and accounted them delicious. Aristotle says, the larva, when it is grown in the earth, and become a tettigometra (pupa), is the sweetest; when changed to the tettix, the males at first have the best flavor, but after impregnation the females are preferred, on account of their white ova. Athenaeus and Aristophanes also mention their being eaten; and Aelian is extremely angry with the men of his age that an animal sacred to the Muses should be strung, sold, and greedily devoured. The Cicada septemdecim, Mr. Collinson in 1763 said, was eaten by the Indians of America, who plucked off the wings and boiled them.
Osbeck tells us that the Cicada chinensis, along with the Buprestis maxima, and several species of Butterflies, is made an article of commerce by the Chinese, being sold in their shops.
Fulgoridae — Lantern-flies.
The Lantern-fly, Fulgora lanternaria of Linnaeus, found in many parts of South America, is supposed to emit a vivid light from the large hood, or lantern, which projects from its body, and to be frequently serviceable to benighted travelers; hence the specific name, lanternaria. This story originated about a century and a half ago, from the work of the celebrated Madame Merian, who lived several years in Surinam. Her account contains the following anecdote: "The Indians once brought me, before I knew that they shone by night, a number of these Lantern-flies, which I shut up in a wooden box. In the night they made such a noise that I awoke in a fright, and ordered a light to be brought; not knowing whence the noise proceeded. As soon as we found that it came from the box, we opened it; but were still much more alarmed, and let it fall to the ground, in a fright at seeing a flame of fire come out of it; and as so many animals as came out, so many flames of fire appeared. When we found this to be the case, we recovered from our fright, and again collected the insects, highly admiring their splendid appearance."
Dr. Darwin, in a note to some lines relative to luminous insects, in his poem, the Loves of the Plants, makes Madame Merian affirm that she drew and finished her figure of the insect by its own light. This story is without foundation.
The Indians of South America say and believe that the Lierman, Cicada tibicen, is changed into the Lantern-fly; and that the latter emits a light similar to that of a lantern.
This story of the Lantern-fly being luminous is the more remarkable since the veracity of its author is unimpeached. She doubtless has confounded it with the Cucujus, Elater noctilucus. Donovan, however, states that the Chinese Lantern-fly, Fulgora candelaria, has an illuminated appearance in the night.
From the loud noise the Lantern-fly makes at night, which is said to be somewhat between the grating of a razor-grinder and the clang of cymbals, it is called by the Dutch, in Guiana, Scare-sleep. Ligon, in his History of Barbados, printed in 1673, probably refers to this insect, when he says: "They lye all day in holes and hollow trees, and as soon as the Sun is down they begin their tunes, which are neither singing nor crying, but the shrillest voyces that ever I heard; nothing can be so nearly resembled to it, as the mouths of a pack of small beagles at a distance." This author, however, thought this sound by no means unpleasant. "So lively and chirping," he continues, "the noise is, as nothing can be more delightful to the ears, if there were not too much of it, for the musick hath no intermission till morning, and then all is husht."
Aphidae — Plant-lice.
The Aphides are remarkable for secreting a sweet, viscid fluid, known by the name of Honey-dew, the origin of which has puzzled the world for ages. Pliny says "it is either a certaine sweat of the skie, or some unctuous gellie proceeding from the starres, or rather a liquid purged from the aire when it purifyeth itself."
Amyntas, in his Stations of Asia, quoted by Athenaeus, gives a curious account of the manner of collecting this article, which was supposed to be superior to the nectar of the Bee, in various parts of the East, particularly in Syria. In some cases they gathered the leaves of trees, chiefly of the linden and oak, for on these the dew was most abundantly found, and pressed them together. Others allowed it to drop from the leaves and harden into globules, which, when desirous of using, they broke, and, having poured water on them in wooden bowls, drank the mixture. In the neighborhood of Mount Lebanon, Honey-dew was collected plentifully several times in the year, being caught by spreading skins under the trees, and shaking into them the liquid from the leaves. The Dew was then poured into vessels, and stored away for future use. On these occasions the peasants used to exclaim, "Zeus has been raining honey!"
In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, we read: "Galen saith, that there fell such great quantity of this Dew (in his time) in his Countrey of Pergamus, that the Countrey people (greatly delighted therein) gave thankes therefor to Jupiter. Aelianus writeth also that there fell such plenty thereof in India, in the Region which is called Frasia, and so moistened the Grasse, that the Sheepe, Kine, and Goates feeding thereon, yeelded Milke sweete like Hony, which was very pleasing to drinke. And when they used that Milke in any disease, they needed not to put any Hony therein, to the end it should not corrupt in the stomacke: as it is appointed in Hecticke Feauers, Consumption, Tisickes, and for others that are ulcered in the intestines, as is confirmed by the Histories of Portugall."
The Aphides, like many other insects, sometimes migrate in clouds; and among other instances on record of these migrations, Mr. White informs us that about three o'clock in the afternoon of the first of August, 1785, the people of the village of Selborne were surprised by a shower of Aphides which fell in those parts. Persons who walked in the street at this time found themselves covered with them, and they settled in such numbers in the gardens and on the hedges as to blacken every leaf. Mr. White's annuals were thus all discolored with them, and the stalks of a bed of onions were quite coated over for six days afterward. These swarms, he remarks, were then no doubt in a state of emigration, and might have come from the great hop plantations of Kent and Sussex, the wind being all that day in the east. They were observed at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham to Alton. A similar emigration of these insects Mr. Kirby once witnessed, to his great annoyance, when traveling later in the year in the Isle of Ely. The air was so full of them, that they were incessantly flying into his eyes and nostrils, and his clothes were covered by them; and in 1814, in the autumn, the Aphides were so abundant for a few days in the vicinity of Ipswich, as to be noticed with surprise by the most incurious observers. Neither Mr. White nor Mr. Kirby informs us what particular species formed these immense flights, but it is most probable they belonged to the Hop-fly, Aphis humuli.