148 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



air wafted its gathered fragrance. On awaking I recall seeing 

 the purple bloom alive with a horde of the Chelidoptera brachy- 

 ptei'a, whose short greenish elytra look like a pair of nippers, 

 and whose leaping legs are marked with a band of crepe. Gaily 

 they waved their hair-like antennae in the zephyr, and sounded 

 out their calls of " reu-reu ! " oblivious of the princely mansions 

 that were rising on their solitary domains. The browner brevi- 

 pennis, common in the Vaudois, I met with on the flowery lea at 

 Montreux, in Switzerland, where are fairy formed and many 

 coloured things; its overtures of "ree-ree!" that resembled in 

 miniature the dirl of the Great Green Leaf -Cricket, lasted in the 

 sunshine for twenty-one seconds. The larger C. affinis I found 

 in plenty among the Mediterranean heath on the northern coast 

 of Spain. The male of the nut-brown Pholidoptera griseoaptera 

 whose cup-shaped elytra resemble a little purse or spider's egg- 

 bag, chirps a laconic " zick-zick! " or " sprink-sprink ! " accord- 

 ing as the echo rebounds concealed in the interlacing brambles 

 of the country lane. First heard in July, it tolls slow and 

 solemn the dirge of departed summer in August, September, 

 and October ; and even in November of the dismal 1879, during 

 the first touch of frost, I saw numbers of the males out on the 

 hedge-banks that encompassed the now enclosed common of 

 Warsash, in Hampshire, lukewarm in the slant sunshine, raising 

 at long intervals the sound of woe. To perform it it is neces- 

 sary they should lower their heads, when the thorax stands up 

 like a collar, and they are able to unlock their cymbals. When 

 the males get together their notes come a bit more hasty, and 

 sound like a saw ; when alarmed they drop to the ground. 

 P. aptera may be heard on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. 

 One morning I went to explore the Pool of Siloam, which proved 

 to be a very common looking rectangular tank on the declivity 

 below the walls of Jerusalem, supposed to indicate the site of the 

 gardens of the Kings of Judah. When I came to its north- 

 western angle I suddenly disappeared into a hole concealed by 

 pellitory, and it came to mind that this was the celebrated 

 conduit that led to the intermittent fountain of the Virgin hewn 

 in the rock under the temple area, that I believe to be the Pool 

 of Bethesda, and as great a mystery as when the delicate foot of 

 an angel troubled its waters. On emerging from the pitfall 



