The sound can be modified accordingly as the strokes of each bow bear upon the callosity, which is itself serrated or wrinkled, or on one of the four smooth radiating nervures. Thus in part are explained the illusions produced by a sound which seems to come first from one point, then from another, when the timid insect is alarmed.
The production of loud or soft resounding or muffled notes, which gives the illusion of distance, the principal element in the art of the ventriloquist, has another and easily discovered source. To produce the loud, open sounds the wing-covers are fully lifted; to produce the muted, muffled notes they are lowered. When lowered their outer edges press more or less lightly on the soft flanks of the insect, thus diminishing the vibratory area and damping the sound.
The gentle touch of a finger-tip muffles the sharp, loud ringing of a glass tumbler or "musical-glass" and changes it into a veiled, indefinite sound which seems to come from a distance. The White Cricket knows this secret of acoustics. It misleads those that seek it by pressing the edge of its vibrating membranes to the soft flesh of its abdomen. Our musical instruments have their dampers; that of the Œcanthus pellucens rivals and surpasses them in simplicity of means and perfection of results.
The Field-Cricket and its relatives also vary the volume of their song by raising or lowering the elytra so as to enclose the abdomen in a varying degree, but none of them can obtain by this method results so deceptive as those produced by the Italian Cricket.
To this illusion of distance, which is a source of perpetually renewed surprise, evoked by the slightest sound of our footsteps, we must add the purity of the sound, and its soft tremolo. I know of no insect voice more gracious, more limpid, in the profound peace of the nights of August. How many times, per amica silentia lunæ, have I lain upon the ground, in the shelter of a clump of rosemary, to listen to the delicious concert!
The nocturnal Cricket sings continually in the gardens. Each tuft of the red-flowered cistus has its band of musicians, and each bush of fragrant lavender. The shrubs and the terebinth-trees contain their orchestras. With its clear, sweet voice, all this tiny world is questioning, replying, from bush to bush, from tree to tree; or rather, indifferent to the songs of others, each little being is singing his joys to himself alone.
Above my head the constellation of Cygnus stretches its great cross along the Milky Way; below, all around me, palpitates the insect symphony. The atom telling of its joys makes me forget the spectacle of the stars. We know nothing of these celestial eyes which gaze upon us, cold and calm, with scintillations like the blinking of eyelids.
Science tells us of their distance, their speeds, their masses, their volumes; it burdens us with stupendous numbers and stupefies us with immensities; but it does not succeed in moving us. And why? Because it lacks the great secret: the secret of life. What is there, up there? What do these suns warm? Worlds analogous to ours, says reason; planets on which life is evolving in an endless variety of forms. A superb conception of the universe, but after all a pure conception, not based upon patent facts and infallible testimony at the disposal of one and all. The probable, even the extremely probable, is not the obvious, the evident, which forces itself irresistibly and leaves no room for doubt.
But in your company, O my Crickets, I feel the thrill of life, the soul of our native lump of earth; and for this reason, as I lean against the hedge of rosemary, I bestow only an absent glance upon the constellation of Cygnus, but give all my attention to your serenade. A little animated slime, capable of pleasure and pain, surpasses in interest the universe of dead matter.