164 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. XI. 



certain ; but certain it is, they never after troubled 

 the house or the lady. There are few, however, 

 who object to the cry ; for over the hearts of most 

 men the merry chirp of the house cricket has power, 

 calling up those days when its single note was min- 

 gled with many a voice, which will not, perhaps, be 

 heard again. The learned Scaliger, it is said, kept 

 some in a box, to cheer him in his labours. This 

 is also practised in Spain ; and in Africa, persons 

 make a trade of crickets ; they feed them in a kind 

 of iron oven, and sell them to the natives, among 

 whom the noise they make is thought pleasing 

 and these people imagine that it assists in lullin^ 

 them to sleep. 



While taking our evening rambles over the heath, 

 we sometimes hear the cheerful summer ciy of the 

 field cricket ; but they are so sly and cautious, says 

 White, that it is difficult to obtain sight of one of 

 these sonorous animals ; for, feeling a person's foot- 

 steps as he advances, they stop short in the midst 

 of their song, and retire backward nimbly into their 

 burrows, until all suspicion of danger is over. 

 There is one way, however, by which an observer 

 may obtain his wish : it is by a pliant stalk of grass 

 being gently insinuated into their burrows, which 

 will probe their windings to the bottom, and quickly 

 bring out the animal, as it lays hold of the grass 

 with its paws. When the males meet, they fight 

 fiercely, as White found by some which he put into 

 the crevices of a dry stone wall, where he would 

 have been glad to have made them settle. The 

 first that got possession of the chinks would seize 

 on any that were obtruded upon them, with their 

 strong jaws, toothed like the shears of a lobster's 

 claw; with them they perforate and round their 

 curious cells. They feed on such herbs as grow 

 before the mouths of their burrows, and rarely stir 

 more than two or three inches from home. Sitting 

 ill the entrance of their caverns, they chirp all 



