VOCAL S INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF INSECTS. 301 



hours. The males came and performed for ten seconds and for 

 twenty-five seconds, as young cocks were wont to crow on the 

 dunghill, and when one waylaid a female on some sunny bank it 

 would approach its head to her hind body, and make brisk 

 music, which it varied with jerks of both hind legs, sounding 

 out "tit-tit ! " a harsh, grating, and emphatic note ; or at other 

 times it would go through a strange antic, kicking out its hind 

 legs like a horse. When coupled it was mindful to reply to the 

 overture of a comrade, and on alarm the male and female took a 

 flying leap. Having an inferior violin, this musician cannot be 

 compared to the previous ones. 



Other grasshoppers populate the hillock parched by the 

 summer sunshine. The "retetee!" of the red-shanked Omo- 

 cestus ventralis resounds merrily in autumn among the furze all 

 over Europe, and I have a specimen found in September in 

 Cashmere, which only differs in the knees being less blackened. 

 In Norway I have met with snuff-coloured varieties whose orange 

 legs concealed them on the heather stained by the stagnant 

 swamp, and on the Swiss mountains, and around Nantes and 

 Turin I have met with the handsome black variety in which the 

 hues of burnt sienna and Vandyck one is wont to admire in the 

 Devonshire cows commingle. The red-legged grasshopper is a 

 wandering minstrel; I have heard one play its "retetee!" like 

 the mellifluous warble of a brook, for more than twenty seconds, 

 and then, on unexpectedly encountering its rival, at once to 

 throw out a challenge of " whee-whee ! " after which it lowered 

 its left leg to listen ; and then, presently meeting with a female 

 of a distinctly different species, it sounded " thiph-thiph ! " So 

 does the instrumentation of some sprightly opera with quips 

 and cranks ring the changes from grave to gay to express 

 unknown emotion. Grasshoppers are born musicians, and this 

 one has an excellent violin, for the wing areas on which the hind 

 legs strike are all dilated with cross-veins. The common Stauro- 

 derus biguttulus may at first sight be recognized by its soft and 

 downy breast and fore legs, for it is hairy, like Esau, and what 

 ladies would call a " cossetting creature." Found all over 

 Europe in endless variety of subspecies, it is well named the 

 ' Variable Grasshopper " ; its sports are brown, green, and 

 ochreous. On sandy spots, such as the Calais flats and table* 



