this season, with a few pretty little birches and clumps of tangled thorn and bramble scattered about. But the feature which gives a peculiar charm to the spot is the false brome grass which flourishes on the slope, growing in large patches, and on the borders of these mixing its vivid light-green tussocks with the purple-flowered heath. It is the species called (in books) heath false brome grass, but as lips of man refuse to pronounce these four ponderous monosyllables, the invention of some dreary botanist, that follow and jolt against each other, I will venture to rename it good-for-nothing grass. For it is useless to the farmer, since no domestic herbivore will touch it; its sole justification is its exceeding beauty. It grows as high as a man's knees, or higher, and even in the driest, hottest season keeps its wonderfully vivid fresh green, as near a brilliant colour as any green leaf can be; and the stalks and graceful spikes after the flowering time are pale yellow-brown, and have a golden lustre in the bright August and September sunlight. Could our poetical _viridissima_ have a more suitable home! And here, coming out from the thick oaks and sauntering about the heath I caught the sound of his delicate shrilling, and to my delight found myself in the midst of a colony. They {142} were not abundant, and one could not experience the sensation produced by many stridulating at a time: they were thinly scattered over two or three acres of ground, but at some points I could hear several of them shrilling together at different distances, and it was not difficult to keep two or three in sight at one time. Hitherto I had known this insect as an evening musician, beginning as a rule after sunset and continuing till about eleven o'clock. Here he made his music only during the daylight hours, from about ten or eleven in the morning until five or six o'clock in the afternoon, becoming silent at noon when it was hot. But it was late in the season when I found him, on 26th August, and after much rain the weather had become exceptionally cool for the time of year. [Illustration: RIVAL GREAT GREEN GRASSHOPPERS]