92 ACHETTD.E CRICKETS. 



in his account of Dominica, describes a "vegetable fly" as 

 follows : " It is of the appearance and size of a small Cock- 

 chafer, and buries itself in the ground, where it dies ; and 

 from its body springs up a small plant, resembling a young 

 cofl'ee-tree, only that its leaves are smaller. Tlie plant is 

 often overlooked, from the supposition people have of its 

 being no other than a cofi'ee plant, but on examining it 

 properly, the difference is easily distinguished. . . . The 

 head, body, and feet of the insect appearing at the foot as 

 perfect as when alive. "^ 



Dr. Colin, of Philadelphia, has mentioned, also, on the 

 authority of a missionary, a "vegetable fly," similar to the 

 last mentioned, on the Ohio River.'-' 



The inhabitants of the Sechell Islands raise the Mantis 

 sicci/olia, or Dry-leaf Mantis, as an object of commerce 

 and natural history. 



Achetidae — Crickets. 



In the Island of Barbados, the natives look upon the 

 creaking chirp of a species of Cricket, to which Hughes 

 has given the name of the Ash-colored or Sickly Cricket, 

 wiien heard in the house, as an omen of death to some one 

 of the family. '^ 



In England, also, is the Cricket's chirp sometimes looked 

 upon as prognosticating death. "When Blonzelind ex- 

 pired," Gay, in his Pastoral Dirge, says, 



And shrilling Crickets in the cLimney cry'd.^ 



So also in Reed's Old Plays is the Cricket's cry ominous 

 of death : 



And the strange Cricket i" th' oven sings and hops. 



The same superstition is found in the following line from 

 the (Edipus of Dryden and Lee : 



1 Smith's Xature and Art, x. 240. 



2 Avicr. Phil. Trans., vol. iii. Infrod. 

 ^ Cuvier, An. Kingd.—Ins., ii. 173. 

 * Nat. Hist, of Barbados, p. 9U. 

 ^ 4th Pastoral, line 102. 



