Aristotle, Second Part of THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

II: 128 pages - You are on Page 37

Part 29

The attelabi or locusts lay their eggs and die in like manner after laying them. Their eggs are subject to destruction by the autumn rains, when the rains are unusually heavy; but in seasons of drought the locusts are exceedingly numerous, from the absence of any destructive cause, since their destruction seems then to be a matter of accident and to depend on luck.

Part 30

Of the cicada there are two kinds; one, small in size, the first to come and the last to disappear; the other, large, the singing one that comes last and first disappears. Both in the small and the large species some are divided at the waist, to wit, the singing ones, and some are undivided; and these latter have no song. The large and singing cicada is by some designated the 'chirper', and the small cicada the 'tettigonium' or cicadelle. And, by the way, such of the tettigonia as are divided at the waist can sing just a little.

The cicada is not found where there are no trees; and this accounts for the fact that in the district surrounding the city of Cyrene it is not found at all in the plain country, but is found in great numbers in the neighbourhood of the city, and especially where olive-trees are growing: for an olive grove is not thickly shaded. And the cicada is not found in cold places, and consequently is not found in any grove that keeps out the sunlight.

The large and the small cicada copulate alike, belly to belly. The male discharges sperm into the female, as is the case with insects in general, and the female cicada has a cleft generative organ; and it is the female into which the male discharges the sperm.

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