The Life of the Grasshopper 



tends to copy the Cricket's melody, with a 

 note which Is hoarser and, In particular, 

 much fainter. In both cases, the feebleness 

 of the sound hardly allows me to hear the 

 singer a couple of yards away. 



And to produce this music, this insig- 

 nificant and only just perceptible refrain, the 

 two dwarfs have all that their big cousin 

 possesses : a toothed bow, a tambourine, a 

 frictlon-nervure. On the bow of the Grey 

 Dectlcus I count about forty teeth and 

 eighty on that of the Intermediary Dectlcus. 

 Moreover, In both, the right wing-case dis- 

 plays, around the mirror, a few diaphanous 

 spaces, Intended no doubt to Increase the 

 extent of the vibrating portion. It makes no 

 difference : though the Instrument Is mag- 

 nificent, the production of sound is very poor. 



With this same mechanism of a drum and 

 file, which of them will achieve any progress? 

 Not one of the large-winged Locustidse suc- 

 ceeds In doing so. All, from the biggest, the 

 Grasshoppers, DecticI and ConoccDhall, 

 down to the smallest, the Platycleis, Xlphl- 

 dlon and Phaneropteron, set In motion with 

 the teeth of a bov/ the frame of a vlbratlng- 

 mirror; all are, so to speak, left-handed, that 

 IS to say, they carry the bow on the lower 



266 



