226 THE INSECT CHOIR. 



But it is chiefly in the aggregate in the multitudinous 

 combination of summer sounds, to which they so largely 

 contribute that Insect Minstrelsy plays its most important 

 and pleasing part 



" Resounds the living surface of the ground : 

 Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum 

 To him who muses through the woods at noon." 



Besides those leaders of the band already noticed, choral 

 multitudes made up of creatures covering earth and filling 

 air, many too small, singly, for perception of eye or ear, aid 

 largely to swell those pervading harmonies more felt than 

 heard, which rise with the first breath of spring, and expire 

 with the last sigh of autumn. This insect choir, descending 

 in harmonious gradation (and scarcely completed by the 

 motes of music which float upon the sunbeam) has been thus 

 described by a celebrated French poet,* one of the very few 

 of them endowed with a heart as well as an eye and ear for 

 the delights which nature offers through our senses. 



" Comme ils gravitent en cadence ! 

 Nouant et denouant leurs vols harmonieux. 



L'oeuil ebloui se perd dans leur foule innombrable, 

 II en faudrait un monde a faire un grain de sable, 

 Le regard infini pourrait seul les compter. 

 Chaque parcelle encore s'y poudraie en parcelle. 

 Ah ! c'est ici le pied de 1'eclatante echelle, 

 Que de 1'atome a Dieu 1'Infini voit monter." 



* De Lamartine. 



