ears" made pleasant. Almost too fine and sharp to be described as metallic, perhaps it comes nearer to the familiar sound described by Henley: Of ice and glass the tinkle, Pellucid, crystal-shrill. Crystal beads dropped in a stream down a crystal stair would produce a sound somewhat like the insect's song, but duller. We may, indeed, say that this grasshopper's sounding instrument is glass; it is a shining talc-like disc, which may be seen with the unaided sight by raising the elytra. Some time ago, in glancing through some copies of Newman's monthly _Entomologist_, 1836, I came upon an account of a numerous colony of the great green grasshopper, which the writer found by chance at a spot on the Cornish coast. The effect produced by the stridulating of a large number of these insects was very curious. I envied the old insect-hunter his experience. A colony of _viridissima_--what a happiness it would be to discover such a thing! And now, late in the summer of 1902, I have found one, and though a very thinly populated one compared to his, {140} it has given me a long-coveted opportunity of watching and listening to the little green people to my heart's content. [Sidenote: Good-for-nothing grass] The happy spot was in Harewood Forest, a dense oak-wood covering an area of about two thousand acres, a few miles from Andover. I had haunted it for some days, finding little wild life to interest me except the jays, which seemed to be the principal inhabitants. In the middle of this forest or wood, among the oak trees there stands a tall handsome granite cross about thirty feet high, placed to mark the exact spot, known as "Deadman's Plack," where over nine centuries ago King Edgar, with his own hand, slew his friend and favourite, Earl Athelwold. The account which history gives of this pious monarch, called the Peaceable, despite his volcanic disposition where women were concerned, especially his affair with Elfrida, who was also pious and volcanic as well as beautiful, reads in these dull, proper times like a tale from another hotter, fiercer world. It is not strange that many persons find their way through the thick forest by the narrow track to this place or "Plack"; and there too I went on several days, and sat by the hour and meditated. It had struck me as a suitable spot to watch for the purple emperor; but I saw him not, and once only I caught sight of his bride to be--a big black-looking butterfly which rose from the top of an oak, took a short flight, and returned to settle once more on the highest leaves in the same place. This vain hunt for the purple king of the butterflies--to see him, not to "take"--led {141} to the discovery of the green minstrels. Near the cross, or "monument," as it is called, there is an open place occupying a part of the top and a slope of a down, as pretty a bit of wild heath as may be found in the county. Stony and barren in places, it is in other parts clothed in ling, purple with bloom at