one says that he has broken his mirrors (_a li mirau creba_). The same
phrase is used of a poet without inspiration. Acoustics give the lie to
the popular belief. You may break the mirrors, remove the covers with a
snip of the scissors, and tear the yellow anterior membrane, but these
mutilations do not silence the song of the Cigale; they merely change
its quality and weaken it. The chapels are resonators; they do not
produce the sound, but merely reinforce it by the vibration of their
anterior and posterior membranes; while the sound is modified by the
dampers as they are opened more or less widely.

The actual source of the sound is elsewhere, and is somewhat difficult
for a novice to find. On the outer wall of either chapel, at the ridge
formed by the junction of back and belly, is a tiny aperture with a
horny circumference masked by the overlapping damper. We will call this
the window. This opening gives access to a cavity or sound-chamber,
deeper than the "chapels," but of much smaller capacity. Immediately
behind the attachment of the posterior wings is a slight protuberance,
almost egg-shaped, which is distinguishable, on account of its dull
black colour, from the neighbouring integuments, which are covered with
a silvery down. This protuberance is the outer wall of the
sound-chamber.

Let us cut it boldly away. We shall then lay bare the mechanism which
produces the sound, the _cymbal_. This is a small dry, white membrane,
oval in shape, convex on the outer side, and crossed along its larger
diameter by a bundle of three or four brown nervures, which give it
elasticity. Its entire circumference is rigidly fixed. Let us suppose
that this convex scale is pulled out of shape from the interior, so
that it is slightly flattened and as quickly released; it will
immediately regain its original convexity owing to the elasticity of the