158 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



tie tale of Charles Dickens, entitled " The Cricket on 

 the Hearth," has thrown a charm around its life and 

 history, perhaps never before so graphically realized. 

 In fact, Dickens has embodied the superstitious vene- 

 ration of this little insect common among the country 

 people of many nations, when he makes his heroine 

 say, " It's sure to bring us good fortune, John ! It al- 

 ways has been so. To have a cricket on the hearth is 

 the luckiest thing in the world." And Cowper did the 

 same, years before, when he sung — 



" Little inmate, full of mirth, 

 Chirping on my kitchen hearth, 

 "Wheresoe'er be thine abode, 

 Always harginger of good, 

 Pay me for thy warm retreat, 

 With a song mor Q soft and sweet." 



There are several species of Crickets, some of which 

 are found in every part of the world, but all resem- 

 bling each other in their distinguishing characteristics. 

 They are of different sizes and colors, according to 

 their different species, but all have parchment-like 

 wing-covers, and produce the sound peculiar to them 

 by rubbing the sharp margins of their wing-covers 

 together. Of all Insects they are perhaps the most 

 indefatigable musicians, some of them thus fiddling 

 with their wings from daybreak until sundown, and 

 others from evening until the rising of the sun. 



There are some Crickets which dwell only upon 



