LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
Ill 
at first sight for the living pupa, but a nearer 
inspection shows the opening in the back and head 
from which the perfect insect has disengaged itself. 
And I have also found lately, in the sandy paths, 
round holes about two inches deep and an inch in 
diameter, each containing a living pupa of this 
species. I have taken two or three to endeavour 
to rear them, but they all died ; one of them 
arrived so near its change as to show the dis- 
coloration which always immediately precedes 
evolution of the imago, and the skin of the back had 
even begun to split ; but it died in the act, and was 
never perfected. The children had told me that 
they occasionally find the perfect insects in the 
summer, lying on their backs on the ground, from 
which position they are unable to rise. I hear 
their shrill ringing crink kept up unceasingly in 
the trees every day, generally high up among the 
branches. Once or twice I heard one on a low 
branch within reach, and carefully watched and 
searched with my eyes to discover the songsters, 
but found that with all my caution I could not 
get within several yards of the bough before they 
ceased, and they would not tune up again while I 
remained. Their song, though monotonous and 
pertinacious, is musical and cheerful, and there- 
fore, to me at least, not unpleasing. 
I have, at length, obtained one in the perfected 
state. I found it lying on the floor of the school, 
having just come in at the open door. It was lying 
on its back in the sun, and, as the children had 
described, vainly endeavouring, by fruitless kickings 
and stragglings, to regain a prone position, its feet 
being very short. It is a smaller species than the 
one which I had found in pupa, being only about 
