nished. When the abdomen rises the chapels
are open, the windows unobstructed, and the sound acquires its full
volume. The rapid oscillations of the abdomen, synchronising with the
contractions of the motor muscles of the cymbals, determine the changing
volume of the sound, which seems to be caused by rapidly repeated
strokes of a fiddlestick.

If the weather is calm and hot, towards mid-day the song of the Cigale
is divided into strophes of several seconds' duration, which are
separated by brief intervals of silence. The strophe begins suddenly. In
a rapid crescendo, the abdomen oscillating with increasing rapidity, it
acquires its maximum volume; it remains for a few seconds at the same
degree of intensity, then becomes weaker by degrees, and degenerates
into a shake, which decreases as the abdomen returns to rest. With the
last pulsations of the belly comes silence; the length of the silent
interval varies according to the state of the atmosphere. Then, of a
sudden, begins a new strophe, a monotonous repetition of the first; and
so on indefinitely.

It often happens, especially during the hours of the sultry afternoons,
that the insect, intoxicated with sunlight, shortens and even suppresses
the intervals of silence. The song is then continuous, but always with
an alternation of crescendo and diminuendo. The first notes are heard
about seven or eight o'clock in the morning, and the orchestra ceases
only when the twilight fails, about eight o'clock at night. The concert
lasts a whole round of the clock. But if the sky is grey and the wind
chilly the Cigale is silent.

The second species, only half the size of the common Cigale, is known in
Provence as the _Cacan_; the name, being a fairly exact imitation of the
sound emitted by the insect. This is the Cigale of the flowering ash,
far more alert and far more suspicious than the common species. Its
harsh, loud song consists of a series of cries--_can! can! can!
can!_--with no intervals of silence subdividing the poem into stanzas.
Thanks to its monotony and its harsh shrillness, it is a most odious
sound, especially when the orchestra consists of hundreds of performers,
as is often the case in my two plane-trees during the dog-days. It is as
though a heap of dry walnuts were being shaken up in a bag until the
shells broke. This painful concert, which is a real torment, offers only
one compensation: the Cigale of the flowering ash does not begin his
song so early as t