An idiom describing autumn: spring insects and autumn snakes.

"Spring insects and autumn snakes" is not an idiom to describe autumn, but a metaphor for scrawled and tortuous handwriting, like traces of insects and snakes crawling.

There is a saying in the eighty-book Biography of Wang Xizhi in the Jin Dynasty: "Ziyun has a good list of names in modern times, but he can become a Buddha without a husband's spirit." If you walk like a spring bug, your words are like an autumn snake. "

Xiao Ziyun of Liang Dynasty liked to write calligraphy since he was a child. His calligraphy is called unique by many people, so it is very famous in the Yangtze River area. But at that time, some people held different views on his calligraphy. They think that Xiao Ziyun's calligraphy has no backbone. Every line of his calligraphy is like an earthworm in spring, soft and weak, and every word is like a snake curled up in autumn, tangible and boneless.

Later, people used "spring insects and autumn snakes" to describe those seemingly fancy but clumsy calligraphy.