Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 11, 32-33): [Book 11, 33] The life-history of the cicada is similar. Of this there are two kinds: the smaller ones that come out first and perish latest — these however are mute; subsequent is the flight of those that sing: they are called Singers [vocantur], and the smaller ones among them grass-hoppers [tettigonia], but the former are more vocal. The males in either class sing, but the females are silent. These creatures are used as food by the Eastward races, even the Parthians with their abundant resources; they prefer the males before mating and the females afterwards, being seduced by their eggs, which are white. They couple lying on their backs. They have a very sharp prickliness on the back, with which they hollow a place in the ground for their offspring. This is produced first as a grub, and then from this comes what is called the larva; at the period of the solstices they break the shell of this and fly out, always at night; at first they are black and hard. This is the only living creature actually without a mouth; they have instead a sort of row of prickles resembling tongues, this also being on the breast, with which they lick the dew. The breast itself forms a pipe; the singers use this to sing with, as we shall say. For the rest, there is nothing on the belly. When they are disturbed and fly away, they give out moisture, which is the only proof that they live on dew; moreover they are the only creatures that have no aperture for the bodily excreta. Their eyes are so dim that if anybody comes near to them contracting and straightening out a finger, they pass by as if it were a leaf flickering. Tree-crickets [cicadae] do not occur where trees are scarce — consequently they are not found at Cyrenae except in the neighborhood of the town — nor in plains or in chilly or shady woods. These creatures also make some difference between localities; in the district of Miletus they occur in few places, but there is a river in Cephallania which makes a boundary with a few of them on one side and many on the other; again in the Reggio territory they are all silent but beyond the river in the region of Locri they sing. They have the same wing-structure as bees, but larger in proportion to the body. [Book 11, 33] The tree-cricket [cicadae] also flies with its membranes - [Rackham translation]

Saint Ambrose [4th century CE] (Hexameron, Book 5, 22.76): How sweet is the chant from the tiny throat of a cicada! In the heat of midsummer 'they rend the thickets' with their songs. The greater the heat at midday, the more musical become their songs, because the purer the air they breathe at that time, the clearer does the song resound. - [Savage translation, 1961]

Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 8:9): Cicadas (cicas, cicada) are born from the saliva of the cuckoo (ciculus). In the Reggio region of Italy these creatures are mute, but nowhere else. - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]

Gerald of Wales [c. 1146 – c. 1223] (Topographia Hibernica, chapter 16): In the districts of Apulia and Calabria there are grasshoppers [cicadas] with wings, which spring from place to place not by any effort of their legs, but by the use of their wings, and have orifices under their throats by which they utter tuneful sounds. It is also reported that they sing sweetest when their heads are cut off, and when they are dead better than when they are alive. Hence the shepherds in that country have a custom of depriving them of their heads, that at least they may extract sweetness from them even by their death. For the residue of the life-giving spirit, until it has escaped by these apertures from the dying body, gives forth wonderful harmony. These grasshoppers, also, being congealed by the frost in the beginning of winter, shrivel up, and many of them putrifv. But when warm weather returns in spring, the breath of life returns to them, and they revivify and recover their strength. - [Forester translation, 1863]

Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Worms 9.19): Cycadas, as he says [i.e. Liber rerum], are worms, of which there are two kinds: some are like small locusts. They inhabit houses and those places which are warmer, where, of course, there is heat continuously. Another species is black in color like a butterfly. Pliny: Males sing, females are silent. They come together lying down. Their eggs are white, but corrupted. They dig a breeding place in the ground and there they produce offspring. In their breast they have something like spiky tongues, with which they lick the dew. They have a tube in their chest, and this is what they sing with; and there is indeed a sweet song in the little cycada's throat. By the songs of which, as Ambrose says, the trees are broken in midday [i.e. broken because of the number of insects in them], because they sing more in the heat of midday; the purer the air the spirit draws in during that time, the louder the songs resound. In the field of Resinus [Reggio], as Pliny says, all the cycadas are silent. Cycadas also fly with their membranes. They cannot be revived after their wings are plucked off. [At this point Thomas mistakenly includes Pliny's account of the stag-beetle (Pliny book 11, 34) which follows the account of the cicada.] It is also said that there is a certain kind of them that we call "flying deer" [cervus volans], which the Experimentator calls scabrones [actually the hornet, crabrones]. Under the wings, as he says, they have fine and thin wings (like a caterpillar). They fly mostly before the evening. They make a noise when flying. They have medicinal horns, long and reflexed legs. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]

Bartholomaeus Anglicus [13th century CE] (Liber de proprietatibus rerum, Book12.13): There is a manner Grassehopper, that is called Cicada, and hath that name of Canendo, singing: For with a full little throte, he maketh right swéet melodie, or shapeth a wonderfull song, as it is said in Exameron. This Cicada in the middle heate at midday, when trées breake with heate, then the more cléere aire she draweth, the more cléerely she singeth. Also if a man poure oyle upon this Cicada, he dyeth anone. For the poores be stopped, that they may not draw breath, but if men forthwith poure upon them vineger, anone they be reléeved, for the strength of vineger openeth holes & poores that were stopped by binding of oyle, as Ambrose saith. - [Batman]