NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 247 



which they make just by, they drop their dung ; and never, in the 

 day time, seem to stir more than two or three inches from home. 

 Sitting in the entrance of their caverns they chirp all night as well 

 as day from the middle of the month of May to the middle of 

 July; and in hot weather, when they are most vigorous, they 

 make the hills echo, and in the stiller hours of darkness may be 

 heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning of the season 

 their notes are more faint and inward ; but become louder as the 

 summer advances, and so die away again by degrees. 



Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweet- 

 ness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always displease. We are 

 more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the associations which 

 they promote than with the notes themselves. Thus the shrilling 

 of the field-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously 

 delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer 

 ideas of everything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. 



About the loth March the crickets appear at the mouths of 

 their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very ele- 

 gantly. All that ever I have seen at that season were in their 

 pupa state, and had only the rudiments of wings, lying under a 

 skin or coat, which must be cast before the insect can arrive at its 

 perfect state ; from whence I should suppose that the old ones of 

 last year do not always survive the winter. In August their holes 

 begin to be obliterated, and the insects are seen no more till 

 spring. 



Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a colony 

 to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in the sloping 

 turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time, and fed and sung ; 

 but wandered away by degrees, and were heard at a farther dis- 

 tance every morning, so that it appears that on this emergency 

 they made use of their wings in attempting to return to the spot 

 from which they were taken. 



One of these crickets when confined in a paper cage and 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 

 v/etted it will die. 



