I have never seen the third Cicada, sketched by Réaumur and described by Olivier [16] under the name of C. tomentosa. The species is known in Provence, so this and that one tells me, by the name of the Cigalon, or rather Cigaloun, the Little Cigale or Cicada. This designation is unknown in my neighbourhood. I possess two other specimens which Réaumur probably confused with the one of which he gives us a drawing. One is the Black Cicada (C. atra, Oliv.), whom I came across only once; the other is the Pigmy Cicada (C. pygmæa, Oliv.), whom I have picked up pretty often. I will say a few words about this last one. He is the smallest member of the genus in my district, the size of an average Gad-fly, and measures about three-quarters of an inch in length. His cymbals are transparent, with three opaque veins, are scarcely sheltered by a fold in the skin and are in full view, without any sort of entrance-lobby or sound-chamber. I may remark, in terminating our survey, that the entrance-lobby exists only in the Common Cicada; all the others are without it. The dampers are separated by a wide interval and allow the chapels to open wide. The mirrors are comparatively large. Their shape suggests the outline of a kidney-bean. The abdomen does not heave when the insect sings; it remains stationary, like the Ash Cicada’s. Hence a lack of variety in the melody of both. The Pigmy Cicada’s song is a monotonous rattle, pitched in a shrill key, but faint and hardly perceptible a few steps away in the calm of our enervating July afternoons. If ever a fancy seized him to forsake his sun-scorched bushes and to come and settle down in force in my cool plane-trees—and I wish that he would, for I should much like to study him more closely—this pretty little Cicada would not disturb my solitude as the frenzied Cacan does. We have now ploughed our way through the descriptive part; we know the instrument of sound so far as its structure is concerned. In conclusion, let us ask ourselves the object of these musical orgies. What is the use of all this noise? One reply is bound to come: it is the call of the males summoning their mates; it is the lovers’ cantata. I will allow myself to discuss this answer, which is certainly a very natural one. For fifteen years the Common Cicada and his shrill associate, the Cacan, have thrust their society upon me. Every summer for two months I have them before my eyes, I have them in my ears. Though I may not listen to them gladly, I observe them with a certain zeal. I see them ranged in rows on the smooth bark of the plane-trees, all with their heads upwards, both sexes interspersed with a few inches between them. With their suckers driven into the tree, they drink, motionless. As the sun turns and moves the shadow, they also turn around the branch with slow lateral steps and make for the best-lighted and hottest surface. Whether they be working their suckers or moving their quarters, they never cease singing.