DYING MUSIC 219 



turtle-doves in the elms seem to utter a noise that suggests 

 some organ very unlike a throat, if it is not quite an insect 

 noise. But Tennyson quite appropriately connected it with 

 the 



•Murmur of innumerable bees.' 



The insect hum is no substitute for the music that is stilled, 

 but it keeps at bay the silence which is one of the most 

 unsummer-like of attributes. Music, in the strict sense of 

 the word, is not to be found even in birds' songs, much less 

 can it be extracted from the hum of insects. Nevertheless, 

 we get great pleasure from the unmusical murmur, which 

 especially belongs to summer evenings. A summer night 

 would hardly be a summer night without the sound of some 

 great bold cockchafer dashing out on his thunderous course, 

 regardless of obstacles. We may call him a night-singer, 

 like the nightingale. He takes up the chorus dropped by 

 the bees. Among the bees the latest is the bumble. Long 

 after the hive-bees are at home, the bumble is abroad 

 foraging, and making, it seems, a double noise now that she is 

 alone. With great punctuality she waits as a rule for about 

 an hour after sunset, rolling about till then in her clumsy 

 way over the thick rose-petals or any flower she fancies. 

 She will sometimes tumble into a poppy-head, and roll there 

 with a high-pitched angry buzz, till she is covered with the 

 slaty pollen, against her will. Her rather slow and vagrant 

 course and sleepy hum at this hour is in strange contrast to 

 her fine intention when the hour for departure has struck, 

 when the condensing dew or darkening light announce the 

 end of day. Then she shoots off with a deep and purposeful 

 hum, as determined on a rapid and straight course as the 

 cockchafer or the migrant bird. 



All these insect sounds have their distinctions, very 



