I proofed some of a travel guide this English guy wrote in 1789. At one point while talking about Italy he starts talking about the "cicalas" he encountered while there:

[...]the cicala, a creature which leaves nothing else untouched here. Surely their clamours and depredations have no equal. I used to walk in the Boboli Gardens, defying the heat, till they had eaten up the little shade some hedges there afforded me; and till, by their incessant noise, all thought is disturbed[...]

[T]he uncommon noise he makes [...] is louder than can be guessed at by those who have not heard it in Tuscany. He is [...] no small feeder, I should imagine, by the total destruction his noisy tribe make amongst the leaves, which are now wholly stript by them of all their verdure[...]


One wonders whether he saw a cicada attack that made BROOD X look like a scattering of friendly crickets by comparison.

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blarg

January 2016

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