250 fir CSirHriTi 



nations, mignonette, feverfew, bachelor-buttons. 

 Iceland poppies, pinks, larkspurs, sweet-will- 

 iams. and lemon-verbena. There should always 

 be plenty of these old-fashioned flowers to cut 

 from. 



The grand inflorescence of the chestnut-trees 

 on the hill-side is mostly past not. however, be- 

 fore the cicada rings out his song of heat I in- 

 variably hear his first overture while the chestnut 

 is still in bloom. I love his magnificent <r*f- 

 ccndo. How broad his diapason, and how so- 

 norous the mighty volume of sound ! It is the 

 most fervid of all summer sounds, this ringing 

 expression of drought and heat, produced by the 

 hind- legs with which he leaps, said Aristotle two 

 thousand years ago. It is pleasant to know. 

 according to another classic Zenachus that 

 the cicadae live happily, since they all have voice- 

 less wives ; the two drums on either side of the 

 body under the wings not existing in the female. 

 The cicada's song brings up Meleager and The- 

 ocritus, the classic cicada. I believe, being a spe- 

 cies of Tettix or harvest-fly, erroneously termed 

 "locust." Independent of entomological accu- 

 racy. cicada is the preferable name ; it has a 

 drier and more sibilant sound. Virgil's cicada? 

 are qutrula and rauca ; Martial's, argute and 

 inhuman*. In the " Anthologia," on the other 



