Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/306

Rh known to the Greeks. Some varieties are truly musical; but the majority are astonishingly noisy,—so noisy that their stridulation is considered one of the great afflictions of summer. Therefore it were vain to seek among the myriads of Japanese verses on semi for anything comparable to the lines of Evenus above quoted; indeed, the only Japanese poem that I could find on the subject of a cicada caught by a bird, was the following:—

Or "caught by a boy" the poet might equally well have observed,—this being a much more frequent cause of the pitiful cry. The lament of Nicias for the tettix would serve as the elegy of many a semi:—

"No more shall I delight myself by sending out a sound from my quick-moving wings, because I have fallen into the savage hand of a boy, who seized me unexpectedly, as I was sitting under the green leaves." 註