INTRODUCTION. 9 



and provident creatures, with their much-lauded virtues, 

 to the joyous, musical, sun-loving tribes of grasshoppers 

 and cicadas " harmless creatures, nourished upon dews," 

 as was once fondly believed, and whose song is to the 

 peasant a harbinger of fair weather and a plentiful harvest. 

 And here again we will quote from the Introduction to 

 Entomology 



" . . . . They were addressed by the most endearing 

 epithets, and were regarded as all but divine. One bard 

 entreats the shepherds to spare the innoxious tettix, that 

 nightingale of the nymphs, and to make those mischievous 

 birds the thrush and blackbird their prey. ' Sweet pro- 

 phet of the summer,' says Anacreon, addressing this 

 insect, ' the Muses love thee, Phoebus himself loves thee, 

 and has given thee a shrill song ; old age does not wear 

 thee ; thou art wise, earth-born, musical, impassive, 

 without blood : thou art almost like a god.' " 



Our authors go on to suggest that the TTTI% of the 

 Greeks must have been more musical than those of other 

 countries, which have been " execrated for the deafening 

 din that they produce ;" but there is as great variety in 

 musical taste as in the quality of music, and among 

 English poets we find one attributing the " sweet music" 

 of the woods to the chorus of lark, linnet, throstle, night- 

 ingale, and grasshopper ; while another writes of " scream- 

 ing grasshoppers," which " fill everye eare with noyse." 

 That the cicada itself entertained little doubt of its musical 

 powers was proved in a contest between Eunomus and 

 Ariston at the Pythian games, when, one of the strings 

 of the cithara of Eunomus being broken, a cicada perched 

 upon the instrument, supplied the deficiency, and won the 

 day for him. 



We cannot, in a chapter devoted to such associations, 



