CHAPTER V. 

 GRASSHOPPERS, CRICKETS, AND LOCUSTS. 



LIKE the nightingale or the frog, the grasshopper lives in 

 verse chiefly from its "song." It is the minstrel among 

 the insects ; the " piping " one. Not that all admire it, for 

 it is called " tiresome," " shrill," " creaking ; " while Marvel 

 speaks of its note as a "squeaking laugh." Nor is this, on 

 occasion, a bad description; for I remember once, when 

 puzzled for my way on the Wiltshire Downs, fancying the 

 cricket's voice derisive. I was listening with both my ears 

 to catch if I could the sounds from some neighbouring sheep- 

 fold ; but all I heard was the jeering of the insect. But, like 

 church-bells, grasshoppers say just what the listener chooses 

 to hear. So its speech would work in well into fairy-tale as 

 a substitute for the ambiguous directions given to straying 

 heroes and heroines by mischievous elves, or that old man's 

 nod of the head, which in Red Indian stories means yes or 

 no, just as the inquirer wishes the answer to be the one or 

 the other. 



" Twittering " is more than once the poet's epithet for the 

 sound (Leyden has "pittering," which, I suppose, is a 

 phonetic rendering), and, as a rule, it is amiably accepted as 

 after the manner of "singing." Mackay is original 



" By the clink that sounds among the grass, 

 Like tempered steel on greaves of brass, 

 As the mail-clad grass-hoppers chirp and pass." 

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