The Life of the Grasshopper 



tends to copy the Cricket's melody, with a 

 note which is hoarser and, in particular, 

 much fainter. In both cases, the feebleness 

 of the sound hardly allows me to hear the 

 singer a couple of yards away. 



And to produce this music, this insig- 

 nificant and only just perceptible refrain, the 

 two dwarfs have all that their big cousin 

 possesses : a toothed bow, a tambourine, a 

 friction-nervure. On the bow of the Grey 

 Decticus I count about forty teeth and 

 eighty on that of the Intermediary Decticus. 

 Moreover, in both, the right wing-case dis- 

 plays, around the mirror, a few diaphanous 

 spaces, intended no doubt to increase the 

 extent of the vibrating portion. It makes no 

 difference : though the instrument is mag- 

 nificent, the production of sound is very poor. 



With this same mechanism of a drum and 

 file, which of them will achieve any progress? 

 Not one of the large-winged Locustidae suc- 

 ceeds in doing so. All, from the biggest, the 

 Grasshoppers, Dectici and Conocephali, 

 down to the smallest, the Platycleis, Xiphi- 

 dion and Phaneropteron, set in motion with 

 the teeth of a bow the frame of a vibrating- 

 mirror; all are, so to speak, left-handed, that 

 is to say, they carry the bow on the lower 



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