In this genesis of sounds it is impossible to talk authoritatively of a steady progression which makes the middling follow on the bad and the excellent on the middling. We see nothing but abrupt excursions, intermittences, recoils, sudden expansions not foretold by what has gone before nor continued by that which follows; we find nothing but a riddle whose solution does not lie in the virtues of the cell alone, that easy pillow for whoso has not the courage to search deeper. But let us leave the question of origins, that inaccessible domain, and come down to facts; let us cross-examine a few representatives of those old races who were the earliest exponents of the art of sounds and took it into their heads to sing at a time when the mud of the first continents was hardening; let us ask them how their instrument is constructed and what is the object of their ditty. The Grasshopper, so remarkable both for the length and thickness of her hinder thighs and for her ovipositor, the sabre or dibble which plants her eggs, is one of the chief performers in the entomological concert. Indeed, if we except the Cicada, who is often confused with her, she is responsible for the greater part of the noise. Only one of the Orthoptera surpasses her; and that is the Cricket, her near neighbour. Let us first listen to the White-faced Decticus. The performance begins with a hard, sharp, almost metallic sound, very like that emitted by the Thrush keeping a sharp look-out while he stuffs himself with olives. It consists of a series of isolated notes, tick-tick, with a longish pause between them. Then, with a gradual crescendo, the song develops into a rapid clicking in which the fundamental tick-tick is accompanied by a continuous droning bass. At the end the crescendo becomes so loud that the metallic note disappears and the sound is transformed into a mere rustle, a frrrr-frrrr-frrrr of the greatest rapidity. The performer goes on like this for hours, with alternating strophes and rests. In calm weather, the song, at its height, can be heard twenty steps away. That is no great distance. The noise made by the Cicada and the Cricket carries much farther. How are the strains produced? The books which I am able to consult leave me perplexed. They tell me of the “mirror,” a thin, quivering membrane which glistens like a blade of mica; but how is this membrane made to vibrate? That is what they either do not tell us or else tell us very vaguely and inaccurately, talking of a friction of the wing-cases, mutual rubbing of the nervures; and that is all. I should like a more lucid explanation, for a Grasshopper’s musical-box, I feel certain in advance, must have an exact mechanism of its own. Let us therefore look into the matter, even though we have to repeat observations already perhaps made by others, but unknown to a recluse like myself, whose whole library consists of a few old odd volumes.