Another sure sign that fall approaches is evidenced by the call of the cricket and other kindred insect life in our midst as the sun sinks behind the heavens. The noises of the evenings just now are particularly observable, and almost rival--or perhaps, if not rival, measurably approach--the choruses of Nature during a tropical night. Those of us who recall our first impression of our stay in the tropics can, at this season in Ontario, get quite a simile at home, and it’s charming too; and our air is so delightful that mere physical existence becomes dreamy and a positive luxury. The katydid is now at his best, and delivers himself of his “crackling sing” as he descends on the wing, bat-like, among the tree branches, to the ground. Our katydid is never heard during the early part of the summer, and just now, since he is our guest for a short time, it would richly repay our boys to catch him and examine him at leisure. One cannot help admiring him, for he’s a fine fellow; but the great trouble with him is that he’s so plainly a member of the locust family that we fear his congeners might come and devour our beautiful Ontario for us. We are assured, however, by those naturalists supposed to be able to know, that there can possibly be no danger of a locust pest in our humid, cool, Ontario climate, and so we bless our stars that our lines have fallen in such pleasant places. Ontario to-day, the golden grain-burdened, with its hill and dale and copses interspersed, is beautiful beyond compare. Walk out any one of the fine evenings in July, grandest of all months, just when the sun is leaving us, far away in the north-west, amidst an amber sky, with not a vestige of cloud above, and just as he finally dips, the strong probability is that you will be startled at first, and then delighted, with the quick cry of the “whip-poor-will.” Stand in your tracks and back again and again will come to you in quick succession for eight or ten times the distinct words, “whip-poor-will,” and then as quickly the cry will cease. Right away from an exactly opposite side of the landscape, from about a coppice of thick bushes, with some large trees growing in it and protruding far above them, will come the answer to the challenge, “whip-poor-will,” and so the words will be bandied back and forth until the shades of night have fallen in real earnest, giving you, perhaps, the most enjoyable and natural concert one can be treated to in our own country.