imagine, results the harsh, grating quality of the cry. It is hardly
possible to verify the fact by holding the insect in the fingers; the
terrified _Cacan_ does not go on singing his usual song.

The dampers do not overlap; on the contrary, they are separated by a
fairly wide interval. With the rigid tongues, appendages of the abdomen,
they half shelter the cymbals, half of which is completely bare. Under
the pressure of the finger the abdomen opens a little at its
articulation with the thorax. But the insect is motionless when it
sings; there is nothing of the rapid vibrations of the belly which
modulate the song of the common Cigale. The chapels are very small;
almost negligible as resonators. There are mirrors, as in the common
Cigale, but they are very small; scarcely a twenty-fifth of an inch in
diameter. In short, the resonating mechanism, so highly developed in the
common Cigale, is here extremely rudimentary. How then is the feeble
vibration of the cymbals re-enforced until it becomes intolerable?

This species of Cigale is a ventriloquist. If we examine the abdomen by
transmitted light, we shall see that the anterior two-thirds of the
abdomen are translucent. With a snip of the scissors we will cut off the
posterior third, to which are relegated, reduced to the strictly
indispensable, the organs necessary to the propagation of the species
and the preservation of the individual. The rest of the abdomen presents
a spacious cavity, and consists simply of the integuments of the walls,
except on the dorsal side, which is lined with a thin muscular layer,
and supports a fine digestive canal, almost a thread. This large cavity,
equal to nearly half the total volume of the insect, is thus almost
absolutely empty. At the back are seen the two motor muscles of the
cymbals, two muscular columns arranged like the limbs of a ~V~. To right
and left of the point of this ~V~ shine the tiny mirrors; and between