CHAPTER XI 



THE ITALIAN CRICKET 



My house shelters no specimens of the domestic Cricket, 

 the guest of bakeries and rustic hearths. But although 

 in my village the chinks under the hearthstones are 

 mute, the nights of summer are musical with a singer 

 little known in the North. The sunny hours of spring 

 have their singer, the Field-Cricket of which I have 

 written ; while in the summer, during the stillness 

 of the night, we hear the note of the Italian Cricket, 

 the (Ecanthus pellucens, Scop. One diurnal and one 

 nocturnal, between them they share the kindly half of 

 the year. When the Field-Cricket ceases to sing it is 

 not long before the other begins its serenade. 



The Italian Cricket has not the black costume and 

 heavy shape characteristic of the family. It is, on the 

 contrary, a slender, weakly creature ; its colour very pale, 

 indeed almost white, as is natural in view of its nocturnal 

 habits. In handling it one is afraid of crushing it 

 between the fingers. It lives an aerial existence ; on 

 shrubs and bushes of all kinds, on tall herbage and 

 grasses, and rarely descends to the earth. Its song, 

 the pleasant voice of the calm, hot evenings from July to 



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