The Life of the Grasshopper 



wing. Though habitually silent, he makes a 

 noise at the least disturbance. A dozen of 

 him imprisoned in a box will provide you 

 with a delightful symphony, very faint, it is 

 true : you have to hold the box close to your 

 ear to hear it. Compared with him, the 

 Capricorn, Copris, Pine Cockchafer and the 

 rest are rustic fiddlers. In their case, after 

 all, it is not singing, but rather an expression 

 of fear, I might almost say, a cry of anguish, 

 a moan. The insect utters it only in a mo- 

 ment of danger and never, so far as I know, 

 at the time of its wedding. 



The real musician, who expresses his glad- 

 ness by strokes of the bow and cymbals, 

 dates much farther back. He preceded the 

 insects endowed with a superior organiza- 

 tion, the Beetle, the Bee, the Fly, the But- 

 terfly, who prove their higher rank by com- 

 plete transformations; he is closely connected 

 with the rude beginnings of the geological 

 period. The singing insect, in fact, belongs 

 exclusively either to the order of the Hemip- 

 tera, including the Cicada?, or to that of the 

 Orthoptera, including the Grasshoppers and 

 Crickets. Its incomplete metamorphoses 

 link it with those primitive races whose 

 records are inscribed in our coal-seams. It 



256 



