Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/95

 GRASSHOPPER'S COUSINS

words, we might be shocked at the awful language he is hurling at his rival. However, swearing is only a form of emotional expression, and singing is another. Gryllus, like an opera singer, simply expresses all his emotions in music, and, whether we can understand the words or not, we understand the sentiment. At last one of the two caged rivals died; whether from natural causes or by foui means was never ascertained. He was alive early on the day of his demise but apparently weak, though still intact. In the middle of the afternoon, however, he lay on his back, his hind legs stretched out straight and stiff; only a few movements of the front legs showed that life was not yet quite extinct. One antenna was lacking and the upper lip and adjoining parts of the face were gone, evidently chewed off. But this is not neces- sarily evidence that death had followed violence, for, in cricketdom, violence more commonly follows death; that is, cannibalism is substituted for interment. A few days before, a dead female in the cage had been devoured quickly, all but the skull. After the death of this male, the remaining one no longer fiddled so often, nor with the same sharp challenging tone as before. Yet this could not be attributed to sadness; he had despised his rival and had clearly desired to be rid of him; his change was due rather to the lack of any special stimulus for expression.

THE TREE CRICKETS The unceasing ringing that always rises on summer eve- nings as soon as the shadows begin to darken, that shrill melody of sound that seems to come from nothing but from everywhere out of doors, is mostly the chorus of the tree crickets, the blend of notes from innumerable harpists playing unseen in the darkness. This sound must be the most famiIiar of all insect sounds, but the musicians them- selves are but little known to the general public. And when one of them happens to come to the window or into the house and plays in solo, the sound is so surprisingly [631

INSECTS