126 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



loosened earth, a sign of enlargement and of further 

 burrowing. In the midst of the joys of spring the cares 

 of the house still continue ; it is constantly restored and 

 perfected until the death of the occupant. 



April comes to an end, and the song of the Cricket 

 commences. At first we hear only timid and occasional 

 solos ; but very soon there is a general symphony, when 

 every scrap of turf has its performer. I am inclined to 

 place the Cricket at the head of the choristers of spring. 

 In the waste lands of Provence, when the thyme and 

 the lavender are in flower, the Cricket mingles his note 

 with that of the crested lark, which ascends like a lyrical 

 firework, its throat swelling with music, to its invisible 

 station in the clouds, whence it pours its liquid arias upon 

 the plain below. From the ground the chorus of the 

 Crickets replies. It is monotonous and artless, yet how 

 well it harmonises, in its very simplicity, with the rustic 

 gaiety of a world renewed ! It is the hosanna of the 

 awakening, the alleluia of the germinating seed and the 

 sprouting blade. To which of the two performers should 

 the palm be given ? I should award it to the Cricket ; he 

 triumphs by force of numbers and his never-ceasing note. 

 The lark hushes her song, that the blue-grey fields of 

 lavender, swinging their aromatic censers before the sun, 

 may hear the Cricket alone at his humble, solemn 

 celebration. 



But here the anatomist intervenes, roughly demanding 

 of the Cricket : " Show me your instrument, the source of 

 your music ! " Like all things of real value, it is very 

 simple ; it is based on the same principle as that of the 

 locusts ; there is the toothed fiddlestick and the vibrating 

 tympanum. 



