Cicadas: Shanghai’s Summer Song
“All the different kinds of cicada are now in full song …. most noticeable is the longdrawn song of the big black cicada, whose strident screech fills the air for periods of half a minute to a minute at a time, ceases for a while, and then starts again.”
Arthur de Carle Sowerby, Nature Notes, 1938
It’s not the unrelenting heat, nor the rolled up t-shirts, nor the unfurling of fans across the city. None of that makes it summer. It’s only officially summer in Shanghai when the lusty chorus of cicadas begins, the screeching symphony erupting from the trees. Curious about this ubiquitous summer visitor, we turned to the author of that ode, Arthur de Carle Sowerby.
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