322 SOUNDS FROM ANIMATE NATURE. 



pressive. The insect that produces this note is a gro- 

 tesque-looking creature, resembling about equally a grass- 

 hopper and a bumblebee. 



The black crickets and their familiar chirping are well 

 known to everybody. An insect of this family is cele- 

 brated in English poetry as the " cricket on the hearth." 

 Those of the American species are seldom found in our 

 dwelling-houses ; but they are all around our door-steps 

 and by the wayside, under every dry fence and in every 

 sandy hill. They chirp all day and some part of the 

 night, and more or less in all kinds of weather. They 

 begin their songs before the grasshoppers are heard, and 

 continue them to a later period in the autumn, not ceasing 

 until the hard frosts have driven them into their retreats 

 and lulled them into a torpid sleep. 



The note of the katydid, which is a mere drumming 

 sound, is not musical. In American literature no insect 

 has become so widely celebrated, on account of a fancied 

 resemblance to the word " katydid." To my ear a chorus 

 of these minute drummers, all uttering in concert their 

 peculiar notes, seems more like the hammering of a 

 thousand little smitlis in some busy hamlet of insects. 

 There is no melody in these sounds, and they are accord- 

 ingly less suggestive than those of the green nocturnal 

 grasshopper, that is heard at the same hour in similar 

 situations. 



The nocturnal grasshoppers, called August pipers, or 

 Cicadas, begin their chirping about the middle of July, 

 but are not in full song until August. These are the 

 true nightingales of insects, and the species that seems 

 to me the most worthy of being consecrated to poetry. 

 There is a singular plaintiveness in their low monotonous 

 notes, which are the charm of our late summer evenings. 

 Tliere are but few persons who are not affected by these 

 sounds with a sensation of subdued but cheerful melan- 



