408 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES, 
quarters. Since the L/atte have been so much kept under, the 
crickets have greatly increased in number.—WHITE. 
GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS.—HOUSE CRICKET. 
November. After the servants are gone to bed the kitchen 
hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as fleas, which 
must have been lately hatched. So that these domestic insects, 
cherished by the influence of a constant large fire, regard not the 
season of the year, but produce their young at a time when their . 
congeners are either dead or laid up for the winter, to pass away 
the uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers, and a state 
of torpidity. 
When house-crickets are out and running about in a room in the 
night, if surprised by a candle, they give two or three shrill notes, 
as it were for a signal to their fellows, that they may escape to their 
crannies and lurking-holes, to avoid danger.—WHITE. 
CIMEX LINEARIS. 
August 12,1775. Cimdces lineares are now in high copulation on 
ponds and pools. The females, who vastiy exceed the males in 
bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the water with the 
males on their backs. Whena female chooses to be disengaged, 
she rears, and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt; the lover 
thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast as 
their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of the lake, 
perhaps to deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes are found 
separate, except where generation is going on. From the multitude 
of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these insects seem with- 
out doubt to be viviparous.— WHITE. 
PHALAZNA QUERCUS. 
Most of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt in 
general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small Pha/ena, 
which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, though a feeble 
race, yet, from their infinite numbers, are of wonderful effect, being 
able to destroy the foliage of whole forests and districts. At this 
