The Cricket: the Song 



In addition to this illusion of distance, 

 which, at the faintest sound of footsteps, is 

 constantly taking us by surprise, we have the 

 purity of the note, with its soft tremolo. I 

 know no prettier or more limpid insect song, 

 heard in the deep stillness of an August 

 evening. How often, per arnica silentia 

 luna* have I lain down on the ground, 

 screened by the rosemary-bushes, to listen to 

 the delicious concert of the harmas! 2 



The nocturnal Cricket swarms in the en- 

 closure. Every tuft of red-flowering rock- 

 rose has its chorister; so has every clump of 

 lavender. The bushy arbutus-shrubs, the 

 turpentine-trees, all become orchestras. And, 

 with its clear and charming voice, the whole 

 of this little world is sending questions and 

 responses from shrub to shrub, or rather, 

 indifferent to the hymns of others, chanting 

 its gladness for itself alone. 



High up, immediately above my head, 

 the Swan stretches its great cross along 



1 " Safe under covert of the silent night 



And guided by the imperial galley's light." 

 VIRGIL, JEneid: book ii. ; Dryden's translation. 

 3 The enclosed piece of waste land, adjoining his house 

 at Serignan, in which the author used to study his in- 

 sects in their natural state. Cf. The Life of the Fly: 

 chap. i. Translator's Note. 



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