226 THE INSECT CHOIR. 



But it is chiefly in the aggregate in the multitudinous 

 combination of summer sounds, to which they so largely 

 contribute that Insect Minstrelsy plays its most important 

 and pleasing part 



" Resounds the living surface of the ground : 

 Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum 

 To him who muses through the woods at noon." 



Besides those leaders of the band already noticed, choral 

 multitudes made up of creatures covering earth and filling air, 

 many too small, singly, for perception of eye or ear, aid largely 

 to swell those pervading harmonies more felt than heard, which 

 rise with the first breath of spring, and expire with the last 

 sigh of autumn. This insect choir, descending in harmonious 

 gradation (and scarcely completed by the motes of music which 

 float upon the sunbeam) has been thus described by a cele- 

 brated French poet,*" one of the very few of them endowed 

 with a heart as well as an eye and ear for the delights which 

 nature offers through our senses. 



" Comme Us gravitent en cadence ! 



Nouaiit et deuouaut leurs vols harmonieux. 



***** 



L'ocuil ebloui se perd dans leur foule innomhrable, 

 II en faudrait un nionde a faire un grain de sable, 

 Le regard infini pourrait seul les compter. 

 Chaque parcelle encore s'y poudraie en parcelle. 

 Ah ! c'est ici le pied de 1'eclatante echelle, 

 Que de 1'atome a Dieu 1' Infini voit moiitcr." 



* De Lamartine. 



