52 BOULDER REVERIES. 



chorus is to the first warm nights of March and 

 April; what the bird chorus is to the early 

 morns of May and June. Both frog and bird, 

 however, bring joy to my soul, while the insect 

 brings only an overpowering sadness that I can- 

 not fathom. It always calls up a shuddering 

 thought of frost, snow, ice, cold blasts of wind, 

 falling leaves and dreary winter landscapes; 

 which it, to me, presages. 



Perhaps it is because I am a special student 

 of the Orthoptera among insects, that this cho- 

 rus of autumn so attracts my notice. Blot the 

 Orthoptera from our insect fauna and this weird 

 music of nature would almost wholly disappear. 

 The trills of crickets -black Gryllids, brown 

 Nemobids and white (Ecanthids seem to form 

 most of the night sounds, though the note of the 

 broad-winged katydid is the loudest and most 

 impressive. By day the songs of the green 

 grasshoppers 12 our meadow musicians par ex- 

 cellence ring out from every swale and low- 

 land meadow in unbroken symphony as long as 

 the afternoon sun shines brightly upon the choir. 



12 The different species of the genera Xiphidium and Orche- 

 Umum, of the family Locustidae. 



