188 THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



" While/^ says Gilbert White, '^ the field-cricket rejoices 

 amid the g-lowing- heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the Mole 

 Cricket haunts moist meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds 

 and banks of streams, performing all its functions in a swampy, 

 wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet curiously adapted to the 

 purpose, it burrows and works underground like the mole, 

 raising a ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks. 

 In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at the 

 close of the day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, 

 dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without inter- 

 ruption, and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat- 

 sucker, but more inward.''^ Another observer thinks the song 

 more shrill, but softer, than the croak of the frogs ; and it has 

 been compared to the note of the tree-frog, and to that of the 

 Corn-crake. Latreille thinks it soft and pleasing. Yersin calls 

 it a single grave but feeble note, " Rie, rie,^^ which, when the 

 cricket is seized in the fingers, is changed to acute and short 

 cries of '' le, ie, ie,''^ indicating perception of fear, the cricket, 

 at the same time, ejecting an offensive liquid from the anus. 

 The ordinary stridulation can be heard at a distance of from one 

 hundred to one hundred and fifty feet. About the middle of 

 May the female cricket lays her eggs in a subterranean chamber 

 shaped like a bottle with a curved neck, neatly smoothed and 

 rounded, about the size of a moderate snuff-box, with many 

 caverns and winding passages communicating. 



The mole-cricket common in the United States {Gri/llo- 

 talpa horealis, Burm.), according to Dr. Scudder, commences its 

 daily chirp between two and four p.m., but stridulates more 

 actively at dusk. It is only about half the size of the European 

 species, yet can be heard at a distance of five rods. Its chirp — a 

 guttural infantile trill, " Gru,'''' or " Greeu,'^ sounding exceedingly 

 like the croak of the toads at the spawning-season — lasts for 

 two or three minutes at a time, and is pitched at two octaves 

 above the middle C. The separate notes are usually repeated 

 at the rate of one hundred and thirty to one hundred and thirty- 

 five a minute, but when many individuals are singing together 

 their rate of utterance is increased to a hundi-ed and fifty 

 a minute. The sharp, querulous plaint of the crickets, re- 

 sembling the first few strokes of a professional violinist, thus 



