I speak of the pale and slender Italian Cricket (Oecanthus pellucens, Scop.), who is so puny that you dare not take him up for fear of crushing him.

He makes music everywhere among the rosemary-bushes, while the Glow-worms light up their blue lamps to complete the revels.

The delicate instrumentalist consists chiefly of a pair of large wings, thin and gleaming as strips of mica.

Thanks to these dry sails, he fiddles away with an intensity capable of drowning the Toads' fugue.

His performance suggests, but with more brilliancy, more tremolo in the execution, the song of the Common Black Cricket.