10 FIELD CRICKETS. 



that we can get a peep (except by stratagem) at his black, 

 gold-striped, shining jacket, or at the more duskily-coloured 

 and more portly person of his female partner, who wears the 

 pacific sword of a " saulerelle a sabre." Xo sooner are these 

 tirnid little animals warned by their long autennal ears, directed 

 to all quarters like those of a hare, that footsteps are approach- 

 ing, than, forthwith ceasing their chirp, they pop down into 

 their holes among the grass, at the mouths of which they 

 usually take up their stations. 



After having essayed in vain to dislodge them by the spade 

 from their subterranean citadels, it was found by Mr. White 

 that the insertion of a straw or pliant bit of grass would 

 probe the windings of their caverns, and bring to upper air 

 the poor disquieted inhabitants. In a somewhat similar 

 manner Trench children are said to fish for field crickets with 

 long lines of horsehair, baited with an ant. 



Early in March, the field cricket, with wings as yet covered 

 in their cases, and so enveloped till the month of April, opens 

 his cell's mouth, and, sitting at its entrance, sings, or, to 

 speak more correctly, plays through the summer days and 

 nights, on to August, when all trace of him, audible and 

 visible, disappears, with the obliteration even of the entrance 

 to his late abode. The field cricket, like the grasshopper, is 

 accustomed to fill up pauses in his music, by licking, ever and 

 anon, his feet and whiskers with his rounded tongue, which, 

 together with his jaws, is of course employed also, at other 



