OF SELBORNE. 283 
and dashing into people’s faces, but may be blasted 
_ and destroyed by gunpowder discharged into their 
crevices and crannies. In families, at such times, 
they are, like Pharaoh’s plague of frogs, “in their 
bedchambers, and upon their beds, and in their 
ovens, and in their kneading troughs.”* Their 
shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of 
their wings. Cats catch hearth-crickets, and, play- 
ing with them as they do with mice, devour them. 
Crickets may be destroyed like wasps, by vials half 
filled with beer or any liquid, and set in their 
haunts ; for, being always eager to drink, they will 
crowd in till the bottles are full. 
LETTER XLiv. 
Selborne. 
How diversified are the modes of life, not only 
of incongruous, but even of congenerous animals ; 
and yet their specific distinctions are not more va- 
rious than their propensities. Thus, while the 
field-cricket delights in sunny, dry banks, and the 
house-cricket rejoices amid the glowing heat of the 
kitchen hearth or oven, the gryllus gryllotalpa (the 
mole-cricket) haunts moist meadows, and frequents 
the sides of ponds and banks of streams, perform. 
ing all its functions in a swampy, wet soil. With 
a pair of fore feet curiously adapted to the purpose, 
it burrows and works under ground like the mole 
raising a ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing 
up hillocks. 
* Exod., viii., 3. 
