;j(t4 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



evidently tlerivcd Irom tlu' r/vY/A'-ing sounds which the 

 insect makes. ' ' 



"• Speaking of this community of ideas among va- 

 rious nations reminds me," I said, " of an odd trick at 

 which I savvHarr}' and cue of liis Httle friends engaged 

 a few evenings ago while crossing the Brook ^Meadow. 

 They were fishing for crickets " 



"Fishing!" exclaimed the Mistress. "Didn't 3-ou 

 tell us that they and other Orthoptera were not at all 

 adapted to the water, which they shun ?" 



"True ; and I am glad that the lesson is so well re- 

 membered. Th(! boys' fishing ay^-s confmed to the 

 earth-holes in which the crickets live. They had ants 

 and flies fastened to a long straw, which they thrust 

 down the hole. The cricket is a combative as well as a 

 musical animal, and can often be brought out of his den 

 simply by intruding the naked straw ; but bait proves 

 an additional attraction. JSTow, the point worth noting 

 about this is that the French children amuse them- 

 selves by the same method of capturing crickets. In- 

 deed, the fact has given rise to a proverb quite com- 

 mon in France, il est snt comnie un (jrillon — he is silly as 

 a cricket ! More than that, as early as the days of 

 Pliny a similar practice was in vogue, for that author 

 tells us that the maimer of hunting and catching these 

 insects was to tie a fly at the end of a long hair and let 

 it down into the cricket's hole, first taking the precau- 

 tion to blow away any dust that might prove a refuge 

 for the bait. The cricket spies the fly, seizes and clasps 

 it around, and so they are both drawn forth together." 



