Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/314

Rh names. It makes a shrill wheezing sound,—ji-i-i-i-i-iiiiiii,—beginning low, and gradually rising to a pitch of painful intensity. No other cicada is so noisy as the baru-zemi; but the life of the creature appears to end with the season. Probably this is the semi referred to in an old Japanese poem:—

The Shinne-shinne—also called yama-zemi, or "mountain-semi"; kuma-zemi, or "bear-semi;" and ō-semi, or "great semi"—begins to sing as early as May. It is a very large insect. The upper part of the body is almost black, and the belly a silvery-white; the head has curious red markings. The name shinne-shinne is derived from the note of the creature, which resembles a quick continual repetition of the syllables shinne, About Kyōto this semi is common: it is rarely heard in Tōkyō.

[My first opportunity to examine an ō-semi was in Shidzuoka. Its utterance is much more complex than the Japanese onomatope implies; I should liken 註