30 THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



These are enclosed in paper cages, and fed on lettuce-leaves j 

 but they also exhibit a penchant for the condiments of the 

 pantry and store-closet, with an aptitude for domestication. 

 Gilbert White, who made the experiment of hanging them in 

 his sitting-room, tells us, " One of these Crickets, when con- 

 fined in a paper cage set in the sun and supplied with plants 

 moistened with water, will feed and thrive, and become so merry 

 and loud as to be irksome in the same room where a person 

 is sitting. If the plants are not wetted, it will die.^' 



A rival candidate for the honours of the parlour is the 

 Leaf Cricket, of which there are many species. One giant kind 

 has ravished the untutored ear of the native of the Amazons 

 with its midnight shrill; another is sold, enclosed in cages of 

 fancy-work, in the streets of Shanghai, to fill the houses with 

 its minstrelsy, and infuse a spirit of seclusion. There is an 

 especially lively one in Italy that about twilight appears 

 spectre-like on the dark acacia-tufts which shade the summer 

 arbours, and from whence the male twitters stilly response to 

 the strolling banjo, as once he may have hailed the lyre and 

 barbiton ; so that were the ear adapted, the species had time 

 to learn their modulations. 



Nor is a music so full of poetry and so widely honoured 

 wholly unknown to science. Many have been the attempts to 

 render the songs of the Grasshoppers in music. Yersin, of th^ 

 Vaudois valleys, who died young, was, I believe, one of the 

 first to produce a score of the snatches heard among his Alps, 

 and along the sunny Riviera. Brunelli, further back, was 

 accustomed to keep a band of the Great Green Leaf Cricket 

 in a cupboard, where they formed an orchestra, and whiled 

 the day with recitative. The enterprising professor chirped a 

 key-note, when at first a few of the boldest would answer, 

 and gradually the whole choir struck in, and stridulated \vith 

 all their might ; refreshing interludes were obtained by a rap 

 at the door. Recently, a well-known author has testified to 

 the pleasing nature of a solo from a select male of this species, 

 confined under a glass on the table, which, as his music is only 

 a little less deafening, might be preferable and more enjoyable 

 than a Canary's. 



Although Field Crickets and Leaf Crickets live well enough 



