302 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



land at Valladolid, a yellow-green variety is seen, and in its 

 company there crawls a pale grey variety with a good deal of 

 dot and dash on the elytra. The prettiest sport I found enjoy- 

 ing the sunshine of Valladolid ; it had its legs and body coloured 

 a warm orange-red, and seemed some import of the tropics — a 

 flying nosegay, for the species has some power of flight. I saw 

 an individual attempting to fly on the Calais flats, and on 

 Sept. 20th, 1883, I noticed one taking a parachute leap on a 

 hedgebank at Guildford. On the islands of Guernsey and Herm 

 I have met with dwarfed males, and I have found pink specimens 

 often at the seaside, but sometimes inland, as at Guildford in 

 September, 1885, and on the Grande Saleve, at Geneva, in 

 August, 1892. These have the same resemblance to the ordinary 

 grasshopper that a boiled Lobster has to a live Lobster ; I have 

 noticed this change of colour in acorns. On the hills of Surrey 

 the cheery " wree-wree ! " " wheep-wheep ! " and " reta-reta !" 

 of the Variable Grasshopper resounds from the end of June until 

 October brings the frost and damp. "When the male begins its 

 music it moves its legs forward swiftly, giving from eleven to 

 twenty-one strokes over the glassy front edge of its elytra, and 

 then for five seconds the notes run together with a liquid trill 

 delightful to the imagination of the female, who sits sweltering 

 on a sunny bank with a leg lowered to expose an ear-cavity, and 

 interpret a language of flowers ; sometimes, overpowered by the 

 languid breath of summer, the enamoured male gives six laconic 

 strokes, with a pause between each floating note, after which it 

 depresses a leg, the right most readily, to listen and await a 

 response ; and should it then get none, it will leap forwards on 

 to a grass-stalk, crawl down it backwards, clean its head and its 

 antennae with its fore legs, and strike up again. Should a dazed 

 and sleepy rival come in its way it will leap on it, give it a bite, 

 and so elicit an angry response. But it is when celebrating the 

 requiem of summer that the music of the Variable Grasshopper 

 becomes a sentiment. In October, 1876, 1 went to Calais on a visit 

 to cousins, the daughters of Thomas Hog, the editor of ' Trivet's 

 Chronicle,' and a brother-in-law of Frazer Tytler, the historian. 

 The year departed in smiles, while I daily perambulated the old 

 ramparts, watched the children and dragonflies at sport in the 

 gardens of the Frontsud, or walked on the jetty where the 





