in ant out of the (T.aitorn 251 



hand, they are always sweet singers. Meleager's 

 cicada is a 



Charmer of longingcounselor of sleep ! 

 The corn-field'* chorister 

 Whose wings to musk whir. 



Theocritus can only find in the cicada a minstrel 

 sweet enough to compare with the song of 

 Thyrsis : 



For sweeter, shepherd, is thy charming song, 

 Than ev'n cicadas sing the boughs among. 



There is much of the delightful old Hellenic 

 philosophy in Thoreau's sentence : " The things 

 immediate to be done are very trivial ; I could 

 postpone them all to hear this locust's song." I 

 find the cicada somewhat like the rain there is 

 always an interval between the first drops and 

 the down- pour, as there is between the first 

 warning of the Tettix and his subsequent chorus 

 of heat. 



The grasshopper and cricket have but just 

 begun their song in faint, quavering notes, which 

 they will increase with the advance of the season, 

 and the male green leaf-cricket is voiceless as yet 

 on the honeysuckle-vine. These will atone ere 

 long for the silence of the birds whose voices fail 

 as the insect stridulation gathers force. 



On sandy banks the butterfly-weed (Asclcpias 



