154 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



heat of the season waxes or wanes ; and they play as 

 long as life lasts ; when their music ceases they arc 

 dead. The katydids begin in August, and cry with 

 great vigor and spirit " Katy-did," " Katy-did," or 

 " Katy-did n't." Toward the last of September they 

 have taken in sail a good deal, and cry simply, 

 " Katy," " Katy.," with frequent pauses and restiug- 

 gpells. In October they languidly gasp or rasp, 

 " Kate," Kate," " Kate," and before the end of 

 the month they become entirely inaudible, though I 

 suspect that if one's ear was sharp enough he might 

 still hear a dying whisper, " Kate," " Kate." Those 

 cousins of Katy, the little green purring tree-crick- 

 ets, fail in the same way and at the same time. 

 When their chorus is fullest, the warm autumn night 

 fairly throbs with the soft lulling undertone. I no- 

 tice that the sound is in waves or has a kind of 

 rhythmic beat. What a gentle, unobtrusive back 

 ground it forms for the sharp, reedy notes of the 

 katydids ! As the season advances, their life ebbs 

 and ebbs : you hear one here and one there, but the 

 air is no longer filled with that regular pulse-beat 

 of sound. One by one the musicians cease, till, per 

 haps on some mild night late in October, you hear 

 } ast hear and that is all the last feeble note ol 

 the last of these little harpers. 



