Enough of the instrument; let us listen to the music. The Cricket sings on the threshold of his house, in the cheerful sunshine, never indoors. The wing-cases utter their cri-cri in a soft tremolo. It is full, sonorous, nicely cadenced, and lasts indefinitely. Thus are the leisures of solitude beguiled all through the spring. The hermit at first sings for his own pleasure. Glad to be alive, he chants the praises of the sun that shines upon him, the [[194]]grass that feeds him, the peaceful retreat that harbours him. The first object of his bow is to hymn the pleasures of life.
Later on he plays to his mate. But, to tell the truth, his attention is rewarded with little gratitude; for in the end she quarrels with him ferociously, and unless he takes to flight she cripples him—and even eats him more or less. But indeed, in any case he soon dies. Even if he escapes his pugnacious mate, he perishes in June. We are told that the music-loving Greeks used to keep Cicadæ in cages, the better to enjoy their singing. I venture to disbelieve the story. In the first place the harsh clicking of the Cicadæ, when long continued at close quarters, is a torture to ears that are at all delicate. The Greeks’ sense of hearing was too well trained to take pleasure in such raucous sounds away from the general concert of the fields, which is heard at a distance.
In the second place it is absolutely impossible to bring up Cicadæ in captivity, unless we cover over a whole olive-tree or plane-tree. A single day spent in a cramped enclosure would make the high-flying insect die of boredom.
Is it not possible that people have confused the Cricket with the Cicada, as they also do the Green Grasshopper? With the Cricket they would be quite right. He is one who bears captivity gaily: his stay-at-home ways predispose [[195]]him to it. He lives happily and whirrs without ceasing in a cage no larger than a man’s fist, provided that he has his lettuce-leaf every day. Was it not he whom the small boys of Athens reared in little wire cages hanging on a window-frame?
The small boys of Provence, and all the South, have the same tastes. In the towns a Cricket becomes the child’s treasured possession. The insect, petted and pampered, sings to him of the simple joys of the country. Its death throws the whole household into a sort of mourning.
The three other Crickets of my neighbourhood all carry the same musical instrument as the Field Cricket, with slight variation of detail. Their song is much alike in all cases, allowing for differences of size. The smallest of the family, the Bordeaux Cricket, sometimes ventures into the dark corners of my kitchen, but his song is so faint that it takes a very attentive ear to hear it.
The Field Cricket sings during the sunniest hours of the spring: during the still summer nights we have the Italian Cricket. He is a slender, feeble insect, quite pale, almost white, as beseems his nocturnal habits. You are afraid of crushing him, if you so much as take him in your fingers. He lives high in air, on shrubs of every kind, or on the taller grasses; and he rarely descends [[196]]to earth. His song, the sweet music of the still, hot evenings from July to October; begins at sunset and continues for the best part of the night.
This song is known to everybody here in Provence, for the smallest clump of bushes has its orchestra. The soft, slow gri-i-i gri-i-i is made more expressive by a slight tremolo. If nothing happens to disturb the insect the sound remains unaltered; but at the least noise the musician becomes a ventriloquist. You hear him quite close, in front of you; and then, all of a sudden, you hear him fifteen yards away. You move towards the sound. It is not there: it comes from the original place. No, it doesn’t after all. Is it over there on the left, or does it come from behind? One is absolutely at a loss, quite unable to find the spot where the music is chirping.
This illusion of varying distance is produced in two ways. The sounds become loud or soft, open or muffled, according to the exact part of the lower wing-case that is pressed by the bow. And they are also modified by the position of the wing-cases. For the loud sounds these are raised to their full height: for the muffled sounds they are lowered more or less. The pale Cricket misleads those who hunt for him by pressing the edges of his vibrating flaps against his soft body.
I know no prettier or more limpid insect-song than his, heard in the deep stillness of an August evening. How often have I lain down on the ground among the [[197]]rosemary bushes of my harmas, to listen to the delightful concert!