of orchestra. It is now the time of the
nocturnal performers. Hard by the place of slaughter, in the green
bushes, a delicate ear perceives the hum of the Grasshoppers. It is the
sort of noise that a spinning-wheel makes, a very unobtrusive sound, a
vague rustle of dry membranes rubbed together. Above this dull bass
there rises, at intervals, a hurried, very shrill, almost metallic
clicking. There you have the air and the recitative, intersected by
pauses. The rest is the accompaniment.

Despite the assistance of a bass, it is a poor concert, very poor
indeed, though there are about ten executants in my immediate vicinity.
The tone lacks intensity. My old tympanum is not always capable of
perceiving these subtleties of sound. The little that reaches me is
extremely sweet and most appropriate to the calm of twilight. Just a
little more breadth in your bow-stroke, my dear Green Grasshopper, and
your technique would be better than the hoarse Cicada's, whose name and
reputation you have been made to usurp in the countries of the north.

Still, you will never equal your neighbour, the little bell-ringing
Toad, who goes tinkling all round, at the foot of the plane-trees,
while you click up above. He is the smallest of my batrachian folk and
the most venturesome in his expeditions.

How often, at nightfall, by the last glimmers of daylight, have I not
come upon him as I wandered through my garden, hunting for ideas!
Something runs away, rolling over and over in front of me. Is it a dead
leaf blown along by the wind? No, it is the pretty little Toad
disturbed in the midst of his pilgrimage. He hurriedly takes shelter
under a stone, a clod of earth, a tuft of grass, recovers from his
excitement and loses no time in picking up his liquid note.

On this evening of national rejoicing, there are nearly a dozen of him
tinkling against one another around me. Most of them are crouching
among the rows of flower-pots that form a sort of lobby outside my
house. Each has his own note, always the same, lower in one case,
higher in another, a short, clear note, melodious and of exquisite
purity.

With their slow, rhythmical cadence, they seem to be intoning litanies.
"Cluck," says one; "click," responds another, on a finer note; "clock,"
adds a third, the tenor of the band. And this is repeated indefinitely,
like the bells of the village pealing on a holiday: "cluck, click,
clock; cluck, click, clock!"

The batrachian choristers remin