MUSIC OF INSECTS. 231 



two small apertures, situated a little below the base of 

 their wings. These holes lead from a musical table, on 

 each side of which are five or six thin bars, connected 

 by exquisitely fine membranes. There is an insect of 

 this tribe that is seldom heard until midsummer, and 

 then only during the middle of the warmest days. His 

 note is a pleasant remembrancer of sultry summer noon- 

 days, of languishing heat, and refreshing shade. It 

 begins low and increases in loudness, until it is almost 

 deafening, and then gradually dies away into silence. 

 The most skilful musician could not perform a more 

 delightful crescendo and diminuendo. It has a peculiar 

 vibratory sound, that seems to me highly musical and 

 expressive. The insect that produces this note is a 

 grotesque looking creature, resembling about equally a 

 grasshopper and a bumblebee. 



The black crickets and their familiar chirping are 

 well known to everybody. An insect of this tribe is 

 celebrated in English romance as the " cricket on the 

 hearth." The American species do not so habitu-ally 

 frequent our dwelling-houses ; but they are all around 

 our door steps, and by the way-side, under every dry 

 fence and every sandy hill. They chirp night and day, 

 and more or less in all kinds of weather. They com- 

 mence their songs many weeks before the grasshoppers, 

 and continue them to a later period in the autumn, not 

 ceasing until the hard frosts have driven them into their 

 retreats, and silenced them by a torpid sleep. 



The note of the katydid, which is a drumming sound, 

 has less music in it than that of some of the other 

 insects I have described. In our literature no other 

 species has become so widely celebrated, probably on 

 account of the fancied resemblance of his notes to the 

 word katydid. To my ear an assemblage of these little 



