The sound of cicadas

Let's guess a riddle first - "You don't need your mouth to sing. The sound is so crisp. The tip of your mouth is like a cone, specially designed to suck water from branches. (Hit an animal)" "Cicada!" You guessed it right! Summer is here, and of course these protagonists are indispensable. Listen, "Cicada, cicada..." What are they singing?

Despite my small stature, many great poets have written about me! Among them, Yu Shinan, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a song called "Cicada". What? Don't you believe it? Then come and take a look!

Ode to Cicada

After Li Shimin seized the throne from Li Yuan, Yu Shinan was appointed as a bachelor of Hongwen Hall and became an important minister. However, he was never arrogant and was down-to-earth and diligent, which was appreciated by Li Shimin.

One day, Li Shimin got up and invited the bachelors of Hongwen Hall to enjoy the scenery of the sea and pool, and they all arrived instantly.

With the picturesque scenery, Li Shimin said: "If the country is to be rich and the people are strong, the monarch must be self-aware, and the ministers must sacrifice their lives to admonish, and they must not be like Yang Guang and Yu Shiji who subjugate the country."

Everyone hurriedly agreed, but Yu Shinan remained silent.

Li Shimin also felt it was inappropriate to say this in front of Yu Shinan, and immediately explained: "Shinan is Shinan, Shiji is Shiji, they are not the same."

"Speaking of which, Yang Guang is still my cousin, that's normal!"

This time, Yu Shinan's expression softened a little.

Li Shimin struck while the iron was hot: "Yu Aiqing, please have a drink." Li Shimin immediately changed the subject, introduced a poem he wrote last night to everyone, and said modestly: "Everyone, please give me some opinions."

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Chu Liang (Chu Sui's good father) stood up first: "The confrontation is neat and the allusion is appropriate."

Li Shimin waved his hand and continued to be modest: "Tell more about the shortcomings."

No one said anything. Seeing that the atmosphere was a bit awkward, Li Shimin smiled and said, "Dear ladies, do you have any new works recently? Tell me for everyone to enjoy."

Say this At this time, Li Shimin kept staring at Yu Shinan.

Yu Shinan stood up and saluted Taizong: "This autumn, I made a song "Cicada" to show my shame here."

"Please!" Taizong suddenly rose.

""Cicada": Drooping down to drink the clear dew, the sound of flowing water flows out of the sparse tung trees. It is not just to borrow the autumn wind to speak loudly and far away."

"Good! Good! My dear, If you keep yourself clean, your reputation will spread far and wide, which is a great blessing for our dynasty!" Li Shimin liked Yu Shinan from the bottom of his heart.

Everyone applauded after hearing this.

We shed our shells very quickly. Just how fast? Hearing is false, seeing is believing. After you see it for yourself, you will know if I am lying!

The golden cicada sheds its shell (excerpt)

The golden cicada begins to shed its shell! Its whole body twitched back and forth a few times, and a hole immediately opened on its back, revealing the cicada's back. The color of the protective armor on the back also changed quickly, first it was very light green, and then it turned into dark green. Then, the head came out, with a pair of big transparent and shiny eyes in front of it, like two pepper seeds, black, bright and sparkling. Six legs came out, and the whole body was moving slowly. The most interesting thing is the scene when the cicada tail comes out of its shell. The unhatched cicada tail trembled vigorously and stretched. The golden cicada lifted its hatched upper body into the air and leaned back, then nimbly rushed forward, grabbed the cicada shell with its front feet and pulled hard, and the white and tender cicada tail was pulled out. The whole movement is coordinated naturally and beautifully. The shelled golden cicada lay quietly on the cicada shell. After a while, it reluctantly left the cicada shell.

Although I am so beautiful, in fact, there are times when I am embarrassed, that is, I am caught by children and put in a pencil box. They know the fun best, but as for my feelings, only I know best.

Catching cicadas

At that time, the most exciting thing was not listening to the cicadas, but catching cicadas. When I was in elementary school, my classes were divided into afternoon and afternoon classes. There are four ways to go to school, one of which is along the river, with tall trees on the bank and thick shade, often covering half of the sky. Although there are rural farmhouses nearby, they are inaccessible and for us, it is really far away and deep. However, there are always several trips passing there a week.

Especially in summer, when it’s our turn to go to the afternoon shift, we always walk that road with friends, for no other purpose than to catch cicadas.

As you can imagine, a group of primary school students are wearing shorts, yellow hats, or pleated skirts, holding the elastic bands of their straw hats close to their faces... their schoolbags are placed on the roadside without fear of falling. When entering the river, I was not afraid of my clothes getting torn, and I was not afraid of my skin being torn and bleeding. I just walked straight into the embrace of the tree with one foot and one foot! Just because there were cicadas on the tree. The chirping of cicadas is like a wave of waves that accidentally falls into the children's heart lake, so the heart lake throws out thousands of ripples to catch the waves. "Caught! Caught!" someone shouted from the tree. Someone below quickly opened the pencil case and shut the cicada in.

When we arrived in the classroom, everyone showed off to each other the small animals in the pencil box-cicada, beetle, and scarab beetle. Some exchanged cicadas for beetles, and some exchanged beetles for cicadas. Everyone exchanged and gave gifts to each other. Some beg for a few leaves from others to feed the little treasure in his pencil box.

Throughout the summer, we forced the cicadas to move from the branches to the pencil box, but the pencil box did not turn into a music box. The cicadas were still singing on the tall trees by the river. (Selected from "Cicada's Song", the title was added by the editor)

No matter where the snail goes, it has to carry its home on its back, but did you know? I also have a family! And my home is not in a tree, but underground. Don’t you understand? Then follow me to my house and have a look!

Cicada's burrow

□[France] Fabre

Most of Cicada's tunnels are fifteen or sixteen inches deep, wider at the bottom, but completely closed at the bottom stand up. When building a tunnel, where was the soil moved? Why won't the walls collapse? Everyone thought that the larvae, using their clawed legs to climb up and down, would collapse the soil and block their houses. In fact, it moves almost like a miner or a railroad engineer. Miners supported the tunnels with pillars, and railroad engineers solidified the tunnels with brick walls. The cicada was as clever as them and plastered the walls of the tunnel. It contains a very viscous liquid that can be used to make plaster. Burrows are often built on sap-containing plant roots so that sap can be obtained from the roots.

It is very important to be able to climb up and down the acupuncture points easily. It must first know what the climate is like outside before it can decide whether the day can come when it can go out to bask in the sun. So it worked for weeks, even months, to create a wall plastered very solidly, suitable for crawling up and down. A layer of soil one finger thick was left on the top of the tunnel to withstand the harsh weather outside until the last moment. As long as there is some news of good weather, it will climb up and use the thin cover on the top to inspect the weather conditions.

If it predicts that there will be rain or a storm outside - a very important thing when the delicate larvae are molting - it will carefully slip under the warm and tight tunnel. If the weather seems warm, it breaks the ceiling with its claws and crawls to the ground.

Whenever we sing "Cicada, Cicada", everyone thinks we disturb your lunch break, but do you know? In fact, we are saying: "I know, I know!" If you want to know what we know, please listen to me slowly!

Cicada Chirping

The particularly strange thing is - why does it sing? As usual, this is supposed to be a love song, but cicadas are all deaf. No matter how good they sing, no one can hear them. However, cicadas have very good eyesight. If you approach them when they are chirping on a tree, they will urinate all over your face and then fly away in a hurry. However, if you clap your hands and shout behind them, they will be completely silent. Don't care. I remember that Fabre once conducted an experiment and fired two firecrackers under a tree with cicadas, but they still kept screaming and did not escape. So, why sing at all? I think it's probably just to show the joy of life! (Selected from "The Life of a Cicada" by Zhou Shuren, the title was added by the editor)

My words

Whether it is about the golden cicada escaping from its shell, or about the cicada's home, or about The reason why they were able to write in such detail about the joy of catching cicadas was entirely due to their detailed observation of cicadas and their personal experience of life.

Children, which insects have you observed? Write down what you see and send it to me via email xx3zwzk@163.com! Maybe I haven’t seen some insects before!