The name signifies “bell-insect;” but the bell of which the sound is thus referred to is a very small bell, or a bunch of little bells such as a Shinto priestess uses in the sacred dances. The suzumushi is a great favorite with insect-fanciers, and is bred in great numbers for the market. In the wild state it is found in many parts of Japan; and at night the noise made by multitudes of suzumushi in certain lonesome places might easily be mistaken,—as it has been by myself more than once,—for the sound of rapids. The Japanese description of the insect as resembling “a watermelon seed”—the black kind—is excellent. It is very small, with a black back, and a white or yellowish belly. Its tintinnabulation—ri-ï-ï-ï-in, as the Japanese render the sound—might easily be mistaken for the tinkling of a suzu. Both the matsumushi and the suzumushi are mentioned in Japanese poems of the period of Engi (901-922).
Suzumushi (slightly enlarged).
Some of the following poems on the suzumushi are very old; others are of comparatively recent date:—
Yes, my dwelling is old: weeds on the roof are growing;—
But the voice of the suzumushi that will never be old!
To-day united in love,—we who can meet so rarely!
Hear how the insects ring!—their bells to our hearts keep time.
The tinkle of tiny bells,—the voices of suzumushi,
I hear in the autumn-dusk,—and think of the fields at home.
Even the moonshine sleeps on the dews of the garden-grasses;
Nothing moves in the night but the suzumushi’s voice.
Heard in these alien fields, the voice of the suzumushi,—
Sweet in the evening-dusk,—sounds like the sound of home.
Vainly the suzumushi exhausts its powers of pleasing,
Always, the long night through, my tears continue to flow!