VOCAL d- INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF INSECTS. 21 



comb on the left elytron or fore wing, which they fiddle over the 

 edge of an oval glassy patch on the right with a shrill resem- 

 bling the "tric-tric !" of a brownish-green Grasshopper-Warbler 

 that preys on them ; one would fancy in the days of old they 

 were more numerous. A large group has a female with a some- 

 what straight ovipositor resembling the blade of a carving-knife. 

 The October of 1891 I passed in the town of Nantes, surrounded 

 by market-gardens, whence a corpulent peasant-proprietor was 

 wont to drive to market in a wheelbarrow drawn by a couple of 

 labouring dogs. Many of the women wore the Norman sugar- 

 cone hats endeared by childish histories, and the best hotels 

 were primitive ; in the one in which I found myself there was a 

 large tub of Garden Snails (Helix aspersa) in the backyard, to 

 make broth for the evening repast that concluded with a chicken- 

 bone and dandelion salad. The bedrooms were swarming with 

 the small brown Cockroaches (Blatta) germanica, that soon dis- 

 covered my setting-boards. But to compensate for any discom- 

 fort there were the most delicious pears to be had for a few 

 pence, and the finest wild blackberries I ever saw I found in my 

 ramble on the ridge known as the Sillon de Bretagne, where, on 

 October 5th, I espied one of the cymbal-players, the hunched- 

 backed Ephippiger vitium.* The males, whose saddle-shaped 

 thorax forms a case for their parchment drums, came stalking 

 over the ensanguined bramble-leaves, crisp and sere, with a 

 defiant " snip-snap ! " resembling the clicks of a steam-engine or 

 a couple of jingles of the horse-bells ; and then, after a sugges- 

 tive pause, one of them performed a solo, when the notes of its 

 crumpled, crinkled drums clashed and tinkled to the dance 

 music of a tambourine, with ever and anon a refrain of " sweep- 

 sweep! " or " sweet-sweet ! " The musician's enamorado seemed 

 to be what servant girls call "perfect sillies," for when I held a 

 stick to them, with a mincing and dainty pace they were ever 

 wont to walk on to the end of it. And as they revelled in gay 

 sounds, a female sat as motionless as a crocodile on a leaf below ; 

 on beholding her a male jumped down and gave her a bite, when 

 she screamed like a weasel ; she afterwards accompanied me to 

 Southampton, where she died on Nov. 9th. When making a 

 post-mortem examination I found the fiddle-bow with which she 



* = E. ephippiger, Fiebig (1784) (Kirby, Syn. Cat. Orthopt. vol. ii.). 



