2 ODE OF ANACREON". 



Grecian poet chose the grasshopper, so eminently a creature 

 of life, living through every hour of its single summer, as a 

 representative of surpassing bliss, deserving the apostrophe of 



" Happy insect ! what can be 

 In happiness compared to thee ?" 



But know you not, says the entomologist, that these lines of 

 Anacreon have been only by error and mistranslation assigned 

 to the English grasshopper, at cost of the Grecian tree-hopper, 

 to whom they properly belong. True ; but if we examine, 

 somewhat entomologically, the well-known ode commencing 

 with the above couplet, we shall perhaps find that each of the 

 attributes, real or figurative, which it assigns to the classic 

 songster of the tree, suit as well, arid some of them much bet- 

 ter, our rustic songster of the grass. 



We may notice in the first place, that the tree-hopper, 

 , calle4 by ; the' (jreeks Tettix, by the Latins Cicada, received 

 also 'from the former the title of "Earth-born," a title lofty 

 i& its lowliness, because it was an implied acknowledgment 

 from men of Athens and of Arcady of a common origin with 

 themselves an admission that the insect was their brother, 

 sprung (as they fabled) from the earth, their common parent, 

 whence, also, they wore golden tree-hoppers in their hair. 

 The Grecians would have learnt, however, by a little closer 

 observation, that instead of springing full-formed from the 

 ground, as their goddess Minerva full-armed from the paren- 

 tal head, the infant tree-hopper was accustomed to emerge 



