Cicada sound production : history of pioneering studies (Hemiptera, Cicadomorpha, Cicadidae). Cicada sound production has always stimulated human imagination and curiosity. The main interest for such a striking phenomenon was probably elicited by nutritional and cultural factors. Aristotle (IVth century BC) was the first to provide a scientific analysis of the cicada sound mechanism. His inexact analysis, based upon the vibration of a membrane through an air breath, was commonly accepted until the XVIIth century. At this time, other mechanisms were proposed deriving from mechanisms already observed in other groups of insects (mainly stridulation, vibration, percussion) or from human voice mechanism (whistling through stigmates). In fact, the tymbal mechanism has been understood by the combination of observations carried out by anatomists like Casserius (1600), Réaumur (1740), Dugès (1838), Carlet (1876, 1877) and by experimentalists like Lepori (1869) and Fabre (1897). Because the cicada sound mechanism has been the subject of many debates between entomologists in the past, it is probable that this explanation was not independtly found on many occasions. In contrast, the identification of the tympana as the centre of sound reception by Swinton (1879) was largely accepted and not discussed. At the same time, many naturalists all around the world collected primary information on the sound ethology of cicadas. In particular, they attempted to characterise the calling songs they heard using verbal descriptions, phonetic translations and musical notations. Therefore, the pioneering studies undertaken until the midle of the XXth century in cicada sound production have lead to the recognition of both the main proximal and distal factors of cicada sound production.