Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/374

Rh (5) Ogura-yama, in Yamashiro;

(6) Suzuka-yama, in Ise;

(7) Narumi, in Owari.

The best places to hear the kirigirisu were:—

Afterwards, when the breeding and sale of singing-insects became a lucrative industry, the custom of going into the country to hear them gradually went out of fashion. But even to-day city -dwellers, when giving a party, will sometimes place cages of singing-insects among the garden-shrubbery, so that the guests may enjoy not only the music of the little creatures, but also those memories or sensations of rural peace which such music evokes.

The regular trade in musical insects is of comparatively modern origin. In Tōkyō its beginnings date back only to the Kwansei era (1789–1800),—at which period, however, the capital of the Shōgunate 註