The Greeks have been scoffed at for rendering in deathless verse the song of so insignificant an insect as the Cicada; and hence it has been asserted that their love for such slender music must have been either exaggerated or simulated. It is pleasant, however, to hear an independent observer in the other hemisphere confirm their testimony. Mr. Lord tells us that in British Colombia there is one sound or song which is clearer, shriller, and _more singularly tuneful than any other_. It never appears to cease, and it comes from everywhere--from the tops of the trees, from the trembling leaves of the cotton-wood, from the stunted under-brush, from the flowers, the grass, the rocks and boulders--nay, the very stream itself seems vocal with hidden minstrels, all chanting the same refrain. An especial feature of the Cicada's song is, that it increases in intensity when the sun is hottest; and one of the later Latin poets mentions the time when its music is at its highest, as an alternative expression for noon. Mr. Tennyson, inadvertently, speaks in "Ænone" of the Grasshopper being silent in the grass, and of the Cicada sleeping when the noonday quiet holds the hill. Keats sings more truly:-- "When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the Grasshopper's." Then the Greek poets show us how intimately the song of the Cicada is associated with the hottest hours of the day. Aristophanes describes it as mad for the love of the sun; and Theocritus, as scorched by the sun. When all things are parched with the heat (says Alcæus), then from among the leaves issues the song of the sweet Cicada. His shrill melody is heard in the full glow of noontide, and the vertical rays of a torrid sun fire him to sing. Over and over again Mr. Lord met with allusions to the same peculiarity. Cicadæ are regularly sold for food in the markets of South America. They are not eaten now, like they were at Athens, as a whet to the appetite; but they are dried in the sun, powdered, and made into a cake. STORIES ABOUT THE BARNACLE GOOSE. "As barnacles turn Poland geese In th' islands of the Orcades."--_Hudibras._ One of the earliest references to this popular error is in the "Natural Magic" of Baptista Porta, who says:--"Late writers report that not only in Scotland, but also in the river of Thames by London, there is a kind of shell-fish in a two-leaved shell, that hath a foot full of plaits and wrinkles.... They commonly stick to the keel of some old ship. Some say they come of worms, some of the boughs of trees which fall into the sea; if any of them be cast upon shore, they die; but they which are swallowed still into the sea, live and get out of their shells, and grow to be ducks, or such-like birds."