142 BRITISH ORTHOPTERA. 



acute angle with the body, and then are rubbed against 

 each other by a horizontal and very brisk motion.* 

 The male imagines only are musical. They are some- 

 times heard in the daytime, but are most noisy at 

 night, when their monotonous " song ' may become 

 very unpleasant. If crickets chirp unusually, wet 

 weather it is said may be expected. Burr heard the 

 chirp of a cricket (which he considered must have 

 been G. domestic us) at the bottom of a pit of the coal- 

 mines of Mariemont in Belgium, at a depth of 683 

 metres (about 2219 feet). The "song 5 was heard 

 close to the engines only, near the bottom of the shaft. 



In connection with the chirping of the house-cricket, 

 F. Milton recordsf the following interesting occur- 

 rence:--" As I was sand-papering some cork for ento- 

 mological purposes in the quiet hours of the night 

 some time ago, I saw a cricket, Acketa domestica, 

 coming towards me. I stopped sand-papering, the 

 cricket stopped; moved, the cricket ran away; 

 resumed my work, the cricket returned. I repeated 

 it two or three times, and at last it came so near to me 

 that I was able to catch it. From this it seems that 

 although crickets have ears, which I understand are 

 situated in the tibia of the front legs, they are not able 

 to distinguish between the noise made by sand-paper- 

 ing cork and that produced by themselves. This is 

 but a single instance it is true." 



Gilbert White gives some interesting notes on the 

 house-cricket, of which the following may be quoted^ : 

 " They show a great propensity for liquids, being- 

 found frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, 

 or the like. . . . [They are also] very voracious ; 

 for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, 

 and crumbs of bread, and any kitchen offal or sweep- 

 ings. In the summer we have observed them to fly, 



when it becomes dusk, out of the windows, and over 



7 



Kirby & Spence, ii, p. 392. 

 i ' Entomologist,' 1895, p. 304. 

 { ' Natural History of Selborne,' letter xlvii, 1789. 



