GRYLLUS DOMESTICOS. 143 



the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts 

 for the sudden manner in which they often leave their 

 haunts, as it does for the method by which they come 

 to houses where they w r ere not known before. 

 \Vben they increase to a great degree, as they did once 

 in the house where I am now writing, they become 

 noisome pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into 

 people's faces ; but may be blasted and destroyed by 

 gunpowder discharged into their crevices and crannies. 

 In families, at such times, they are, like Pharaoh's 

 plague of frogs-- 4 in their bedchambers, and upon 

 their beds, and in their ovens, and in their kneedino-- 



o 



troughs.' . . . Cats catch hearth-crickets,' and, 

 playing with them as they do with mice, devour 

 them/ 3 



DISTRIBUTION. G. domesticus does not seem at the 

 present time to lead a truly wild life anywhere ; in 

 fact its original habitat is uncertain, though probably 

 it was Xorthern. Africa. F. "W. Sowerby found it on 

 bare sand in Egypt. It is widely distributed in the 

 Old AVorld, and is also found in Xorth America, 

 though how it reached the Xew AVorld seems not to be 

 established. 



BRITISH LOCALITIES. 



Xot a great many records of the occurrence of the house- 

 cricket in the British Isles are to hand. This is possibly due 

 to the fact that most entomologists think it unnecessary to 

 note the presence of an insect which is considered to be 

 ubiquitous. I give below all the records I have met with at 

 various times for the reason that the house-cricket seems 

 undoubtedly to be on the decrease in these islands perhaps, 

 as some suggest being gradually displaced by cockroaches. 



ENGLAND. - Berks : Neighbourhood of Radley College 

 (Burr) ; Maidenhead (Hamni). Cheshire: Birkenhead, formerly 

 common, in bakehouses where they have now been replaced by 

 cockroaches (Sopp) Chester (Tomlin) ; Hoylake and West 

 Kirby, scarce (Sopp); Delarnere, one captured amongst leaves 

 in the Forest, 1898 (Sopp). Derbyshire: Common in kitchens 

 and bakehouses in Ashburne district (Jourdain) ; many were 

 to be heard in a field used for tipping the town refuse, near 



