THE CHILD OF SUMMER. 



275 



So sings Leigh Hunt a poet, by the way, whose heart was 

 ever open at " the feel of June," and whose genial writings, 

 whether prose or verse, whether delightful essays or melodious 

 songs, should be read in the " happy summer-time," when the 

 idler, reclining on the sunny grass, with the beauty of an 

 English landscape around him, wants the companionship of a 

 gentle spirit and a refined and healthy intellect. 





FIG. 63. The idler, reclining on the sunny grass. 



The mole-cricket is, like the grasshopper, a child of summer. 

 It differs, moreover, from the "cricket on the hearth" in lack- 

 ing those organs of stridulation (excuse the word, kind reader !) 

 which mark "the glad silent moments" with their tricksome 

 (and sometimes inconvenient) tune. Their posterior thighs 

 have an apparent bulging about them, but the legs are very 

 short ; so short, that our little friend could not compete with 



