common variety is snowy white. It is supposed to be especially attracted
by the na, or rape-seed plant; and when little girls see it, they sing:

Cho-cho cho-cho, na no ha ni tomare;
Na no ha ga iyenara, te ni tomare. [26]

But the most interesting insects are certainly the semi (cicadae). These
Japanese tree crickets are much more extraordinary singers than even the
wonderful cicadae of the tropics; and they are much less tiresome, for
there is a different species of semi, with a totally different song, for
almost every month during the whole warm season. There are, I believe,
seven kinds; but I have become familiar with only four. The first to be
heard in my trees is the natsuzemi, or summer semi: it makes a sound
like the Japanese monosyllable ji, beginning wheezily, slowly swelling
into a crescendo shrill as the blowing of steam, and dying away in
another wheeze. This j-i-i-iiiiiiiiii is so deafening that when two or
three natsuzemi come close to the window I am obliged to make them go
away. Happily the natsuzemi is soon succeeded by the minminzemi, a much
finer musician, whose name is derived from its wonderful note. It is
said 'to chant like a Buddhist priest reciting the kyo'; and certainly,
upon hearing it the first time, one can scarcely believe that one is
listening to a mere cicada. The minminzemi is followed, early in autumn,
by a beautiful green semi, the higurashi, which makes a singularly clear
sound, like the rapid ringing of a small bell,--kana-kana-kan a-kana-
kana. But the most astonishing visitor of all comes still later, the
tsukiu-tsukiu-boshi. [27] I fancy this creature can have no rival in the
whole world of cicadae its music is exactly like the song of a bird. Its
name, like that of the minminzemi, is onomatopoetic; but in Izumo the
sounds of its chant are given thus: