_Aug. 22_.--Reedy monotones of locust, or sounds of katydid--I hear the
latter at night, and the other both day and night. I thought the morning
and evening warble of birds delightful; but I find I can listen to these
strange insects with just as much pleasure. A single locust is now heard
near noon from a tree two hundred feet off, as I write--a long whirring,
continued, quite loud noise graded in distinct whirls, or swinging
circles, increasing in strength and rapidity up to a certain point, and
then a fluttering, quietly tapering fall. Each strain is continued
from one to two minutes. The locust-song is very appropriate to the
scene--gushes, has meaning, is masculine, is like some fine old wine,
not sweet, but far better than sweet.
But the katydid--how shall I describe its piquant utterances? One sings
from a willow-tree just outside my open bedroom window, twenty yards
distant; every clear night for a fortnight past has sooth'd me to sleep.
I rode through a piece of woods for a hundred rods the other evening,
and heard the katydids by myriads--very curious for once; but I like
better my single neighbor on the tree. Let me say more about the song of
the locust, even to repetition; a long, chromatic, tremulous crescendo,
like a brass disk whirling round and round, emitting wave after wave
of notes, beginning with a certain moderate beat or measure, rapidly
increasing in speed and emphasis, reaching a point of great energy and
significance, and then quickly and gracefully dropping down and out. Not
the melody of the singing-bird--far from it; the common musician might
think without melody, but surely having to the finer ear a harmony of
its own; monotonous--but what a swing there is in that brassy drone,
round and round, cymballine--or like the whirling of brass quoits.