BEFORE speaking further of the poetical literature of semi, I must
attempt a few remarks about the semi themselves. But the reader need
not expect anything entomological. Excepting, perhaps, the butterflies,
the insects of Japan are still little known to men of science; and all
that I can say about semi has been learned from inquiry, from personal
observation, and from old Japanese books of an interesting but totally
unscientific kind. Not only do the authors contradict each other as to
the names and characteristics of the best-known semi; they attach the
word semi to names of insects which are not cicadae.
The following enumeration of semi is certainly incomplete; but I believe
that it includes the better-known varieties and the best melodists. I
must ask the reader, however, to bear in mind that the time of the
appearance of certain semi differs in different parts of Japan; that
the same kind of semi may be called by different names in different
provinces; and that these notes have been written in Tokyo.