similar loss, and inclines us slowly to the painful conviction that all Greece must have been in mourning for these short-lived insects, which, like poor Hinda's tantalizing gazelles, appear to have made a point of dying just when they had grown most dear. It is a positive relief to find Meleager dedicating his verses to a pet cicada which is still alive and enjoying its master's tender care:
"Cicada, you who chase away desire,
Cicada, who beguile our sleepless hours,
You song-winged muse of meadows and of flowers,
Who are the natural mimic of the lyre,
Chirp a familiar melody and sweet.
My weight of sleepless care to drive away;
Your love-beguiling tune to me now play,
Striking your prattling wings with your dear feet.
In early morning I'll bring gifts to you
Of garlic ever fresh and drops of dew."
There is an exquisite description in the first Idyl of Theocritus of a deep bowl of ivy wood, the gift of a goatherd to the singer Thyrsis, on which is carved, among other pastoral scenes, a boy weaving a locust cage while he guards the vineyard from the foxes. Just such a
