So established were these and similar stories that, in Greece, a cicada perched on a harp was often engraved upon gems as the symbol of the Muses, and, were there a musical contest, one had only to settle on the lyre or pipe of the competitor it favoured, for the prize to be instantly adjudged to that one—since Apollo was then held to have spoken. Only in the absence of such indication were other methods of forming a conclusion resorted to. In common with other graceful creatures, cicadas were often kept as pets by the Greeks, and that mausoleums were sometimes raised to these favourites we know from the following epigram of the poetess Anytie—written probably for the friend it celebrates:—“For a grasshopper, a nightingale of the fields, and for an oak-haunting cicada Myro has built one common tomb. There the maiden sits and weeps for three pets, torn from her by unrelenting Hades.” Amongst the Athenians the cicadas were looked upon as children of the soil of Attica, and those only who, like them, had been born upon it, were permitted to twist the golden tettix, or bodkin, amidst their flowing locks, thus forming the knot in which they were accustomed to wear them. This privileged bodkin received its name through being surmounted with the head, in gold, of a cicada, or tettix, and the wearers—or bearers—of these insignia—which were strictly forbidden to strangers—were known for this reason as Tettigophori. They were most proud of the distinction, and, indeed, as it showed them to be Athenians, they had a somewhat better right to be than is common in such cases. Yet, amidst all this praise, we meet, here and there, with a dissentient note. Hercules, for instance, feeling inclined to sleep, once, on the banks of the river, opposite where the town of Locris stood, and not being able to, on account of the perpetual singing of the cicadas, took it so seriously that he prayed to the gods to put a stop to their disturbing him. The gods, with whom Hercules was always a favourite, heard his prayer, and cicadas, from that time, ceased to sing opposite Locris, though they swarmed all round about that town. Here it seems just to be hinted that Hercules was not very fond of the cicadas’ song, and Virgil—but he was a Roman—has called it (_infandum!_) a _creaking_ note. On the whole, however, when he mentions these insects, he gives us a pleasing picture. “_Sole sub ardenti, resonant arbusta cicadis_,” he sings; a line which seems bathed in sunlight, and makes one see the green lizards too. On the whole I cannot help thinking that Virgil loved the cicadas.