94 ACHETID^ — CRICKETS. 



some in that house where Crickets have been many years, if 

 on a sudden they forsake the chimney."^ 



The departure of Crickets from a hearth where they have 

 been heard, is, at the present time, in England, considered 

 an omen of misfortune.- 



From the above statements of Mr. White, Mrs. Bray, and 

 Sir William Jardine, we learn that in England the Cricket's 

 chirp is not always ominous of evil, but sometimes also of 

 good luck, of joy, and of the approach of an absent lover. 



A correspondent of the "Xotes and Queries" mentions 

 the Cricket's cry as foreboding good luck.^ So also a writer 

 for "The Mirror," remarking, it is singular that the House- 

 cricket should by some persons be considered an unlucky, by 

 others a lucky, inmate of the mansion. Those who hold the 

 latter opinion, he adds, consider the destruction of these in- 

 sects the means of bringing misfortunes on their habitations.* 

 Grose thus expresses this last superstition : Persons killing 

 these insects (including the Lady-bird, before mentioned) 

 will infallibly, within the course of the year, break a bone, 

 or meet with some other dreadful misfortune.^ 



That the belief that the appearance of Crickets in a house 

 is a good omen, and prognosticates cheerfulness and plenty, 

 is pretty generally entertained in England, may be inferred 

 also from the manner in which it has been embodied by 

 Cowper, in his address to a Cricket 



Chirping on his kitchen hearth. 

 His words are : 



Whereso'er be tliine abode, 

 Always harbinger of good. 



And again in that admirable little tale of Charles 

 Dickens, entitled "The Cricket on the Hearth," this good 

 and happy superstition is embodied. "It's sure to bring us 

 good fortune, John I It always has been so. To have a 

 Cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in the world," 

 says its heroine. 



^ Astrologaster, p. 45. 



'^ Notes and Queries, iii. 3. 



3 Ibid. 



* The Mirror, xix. 180. 



^ Grose, Antiq. Prov. Glosts.. p. 121. 



