Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1893-08-23
THEY FORTELL THE FROST.
The Melancholy Fall Cricket and the
Very Chipper KatNdid.

The Melancholy Fall Cricket and the
Very Clipper Katydid.
The "fall cricket" came on the noe
tunral summer stage among these cool
New England hills on Wednesday even
ing. and sang his droning song under
the luminous sky all night. The fall
cricket, says the New York Sun, is a
thin, slim, shapely fellow, in long
grass-green toga, who is put up on
springs and built like the Stilleto craft
and the important thing about him, old
fashioned folks say, is that in exactly
six weeks after his appearance, the first
autumnal frost will fall. On astill, clear
evening, when be first appears, the old
folks say: ''The summer is going
The season is on the doWnhill side"
Aboutbis song there is penetrating, and
not loud, mournful, lonesome, falling,
and monotonOus cadence, which rings
on, almost unbroken all night. Some
times, late in the fall, on 4 still, clouded
afternoon, he is heard long before the
sun goes down, and his song, together
with the falling, leaves. embodies all
that is melancholy and eerie about the
autumn. He is lonesome, shy hermit
like fellow, who sits all alone, high up
in the trees, and utters his lament I'M
tiringlv. He is very different sort of
chap from the clipper katydid. His
single note has I; hollow. echoing effect,
and he drones on until long after frost
comes.
| He is a sort of q second cousin to the
| katydid, who appears at about the same
! time, in the last week of July or the first
one in August, and has similar oracle
to pronounce about Jack Frost. The
| katydid, though, is q sociable, gregari
Gus, noisy chap in Lincoln Green, with
a rafting, clickety- clack song, who loves
| to gather in great throng in the thick,
| dark tree tops in shady country streets,
and shout, altogether, SO loudly and
shrilly that human folks can barely hear
/ their own talk. Broadway, Norwich,
with its ornate mansions and spacious
wards, embowered in trees i'll mile
! long arch, is one Of the katies' favorite
! trysting places in the late summer and
fall, and it is within bounds to say that
| there are a million there. Actually on
| one serene summer evening last year
they made such huIlabaloo that the
J congregation in the Broadway Church,
at the foot of the hill, with the windows
open. couldn't hear half that the preach
er said, and the clergyman shortened
his sermon on account of the talkative
and irreverent katies. On another
street, not twenty rods away, not katy
did is ever heard, and SO it is with them
| In all this region. 1neV nave certain
| places, and others that have Just as
many attractive trees, and, seemingly,
are just as eligible to be a trysting place
for them, they never visit, and appar-
emily shun them with deliberate intent.
chronological students have remarked
this trait on the part of the katies, and
have never been able to explain it. One
beautiful, shady neighborhood in the
western part Of the town is SO rarely
visited by them that only now and then
a lonely straggler, evidently migrating
insect, is heard there all summer.
Another odd insect who begins to
make himself heard only when summer
is verging into autumn is the Corn
scraper" SO called by the back-country
people of the remote hills because.
perching himself on stalk Of field corn
in the long cool fail nights he uses his
legs for a fiddle, and makes a husky,
scraping sound like that of the corn
stalk fiddle the Connecticut country lad
makes of joint of corn, Sitting two
slivers of it and lifting them on wooden
peg bridges.
The katydid and the fall cricket,
hOweVer-the one rs jOcund as a gray
squirrel basking in the early yellow and
crisp October mornings, the other az
sad and dreary as a gray and melan-
choly day of November-are the only
insects that sing in early prophecy OF
coming fall. Everybody in this land
believes sincerely in their prophetic
song, too. So everyone may now look
out sharp for frost before the harvest
moon fulls about the middle of Septem-