THE FOREST 201 



ment to again watch the strange whistling crea- 

 ture. 



There are many other sounds than those al- 

 ready detailed that are interesting to one "who 

 is quick to read the voices of the night," 

 such as the wide range of insect sounds. After 

 the middle of August the snowy tree-cricket sings 

 by rubbing his wing-covers together every night 

 until his activities are stilled by the cold of 

 autumn. This point is reached when the ther- 

 mometer sinks to about fifty degrees. It is a 

 regular pulsing, throbbing song in which two or 

 more insects may unite in unison. Thoreau 

 refers to it as "the slumbrous breathing of crickets 

 throughout the night." The hotter the night, 

 the quicker the repetition of the notes, the colder, 

 the slower. By counting the notes in a (juarter 

 of a minute and adding thirty-nine, one obtains 

 the number of degrees of temperature Fahrenheit, 

 with surprising accuracy. This may be called a 

 cricket thermometer. 



The snowy tree-cricket, whose song I have just 

 described, is a very different looking insect from 

 the well-known field-cricket, a first cousin oi the 



