CH. XI.] THE CRICKETS. 163 



the softness of the mortar enables them to burrow 

 and mine between the joints of the bricks or stones, 

 and to open communications from one room to an- 

 other. Jt is remarkable that many sorts of insects 

 seem never to use their wings but when they wish 

 to shift their quarters and settle new colonies. 

 When in the air, they move in waves or curves, 

 like woodpeckers, opening and shutting their wings 

 at every stroke, and thus are always rising and 

 sinking. When their numbers increase to a great 

 degree, they become pests, flying into the candles, 

 and dashing into people's faces. In families at 

 such times they are like Pharaoh's plague of frogs, in 

 their bedchambers, and in their beds, and in their 

 ovens, and in their kneading-troughs. 



Popular prejudice frequently prevents any at- 

 tempt being made to rid the house of this noisy ani- 

 mal. Many persons imagine that their presence is 

 attended with good fortune to the inmates, and that 

 to drive them away or to kill them will bring some 

 misfortune on the family. The noise of the cricket, 

 according to Degeer, is produced by the male ele- 

 vating its horny wing-cases, and rubbing them 

 briskly together. The sound, no doubt, suggested 

 the name, for it is exactly imitated by the syllables, 

 cree-cree. It is in the dusk of the evening, when 

 friendly faces are assembled round the blazing 

 hearth, that the warmth raises the cricket's cry of 

 love. It is the single tale, the one chant of its life 

 and, however loud the conversation or the laugh, 

 its shrill note is heard through all. This shrilling 

 was once so troublesome to a lady as to cause her 

 to resort to every means to dislodge the insect from 

 its roost ; but all in vain. It so happened that a 

 wedding was celebrated in her house with all kinds 

 of music. The trumpet and the drum were rather 

 more than the cricket could cry down ; and whether 

 it was fright, or whether it was anger at being van- 

 quished, which drove these insects ofl', is not quite 



