AN AUGUST SONG 217 



then he would fold his horns against his back and 

 sleep. He soon became tame, and looked for his 

 food sugar and water, dead flies, and milk with 

 which he was fed from the end of a straw. But 

 day by day he grew feebler ; he jumped no more, 

 the ends of his wings were fretted and dead, he 

 breathed very rapidly when moving, and he never 

 sang. Replaced in the greenhouse, he was lively for 

 a time, but suddenly disappeared, probably having 

 crawled into some dark corner to die. 



Crickets and grasshoppers are highly interesting 

 insects, with a great variety of apparatus for 

 producing the different noises by which they are 

 distinguished. 



One of the most interesting of these creatures 

 was observed in Western Canada, where it is 

 common. It was a black grasshopper two inches 

 long, which at rest looked exactly like a piece of 

 black root, but in flight displayed a pair of large 

 wings marked with emerald green, so that the 

 thing then looked like a black and green butterfly. 

 This insect never chirmed, but when flying it 

 sometimes made a loud snapping noise, clearly 

 audible at a distance of seventy to eighty yards. 



