lucens_ 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 lunae_, 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 glanc