How the nocturnal insects, the tree-crickets and katydids, fail as
the heat fails! They are musicians that play fast or slow, strong
or feeble, just as the heat of the season waxes or wanes; and they
play as long as life lasts: when their music ceases, they are dead.
The katydids begin in August, and cry with great vigor and spirit,
"Katy-did," "Katydid," or "Katy-did n't." Toward the last of
September they have taken in sail a good deal, and cry simply,
"Katy," "Katy," with frequent pauses and resting-spells. In
October they languidly gasp or rasp, "Kate," "Kate," "Kate," and
before the end of the month they become entirely inaudible, though
I suspect that if one's ear were sharp enough he might still hear a
dying whisper, "Kate," "Kate." Those cousins of Katy, the little
green purring tree-crickets, fail in the same way and at the same
time. When their chorus is fullest, the warm autumn night fairly
throbs with the soft lulling undertone. I notice that the sound is
in waves or has a kind of rhythmic beat. What a gentle, unobtrusive
background it forms for the sharp, reedy notes of the katydids! As
the season advances, their life ebbs and ebbs: you hear one here
and one there, but the air is no longer filled with that regular
pulse-beat of sound. One by one the musicians cease, till, perhaps
on some mild night late in October, you hear--just hear and that is
all--the last feeble note of the last of these little harpers.