CH. XI.] THE CRICKETS. 165 



night as well as day, from the middle of the month 

 of May to the middle of July. In hot weather, 

 when they are most vigorous, they make the hill 

 echo ; and, in the still hours of darkness, may be 

 heard at a considerable distance. In the beginning 

 of the season, their notes are more faint and in- 

 ward, but become louder as summer advances, and 

 so die away again by degrees. 



'* The sounds of these animals," says White, "do 

 not always give us pleasure according to their 

 sweetness and melody. 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 every thing that is rural, verdurous, and 

 joyous." They afford some persons much amuse- 

 inent when placed in a paper cage and set in the 

 sun, and supplied with plants moistened with water, 

 on which they will live some time, and become so 

 merry and loud as to be irksome, when in a room 

 where a person is sitting. 



There is one species which is singularly furnished 

 with an apparatus, like an umbrella, over the front 

 of the face, probably useful for the purpose of pro- 

 tecting it when the animal is burrowing. 



The name of the next species, the mole cricket, 

 is a very good index to its form and habits. It often 

 infests gardens by the sides of canals, where it is 

 an unwelcome guest to the gardener ; so much so, 

 that a German author of an old book of gardening 

 was induced to exclaim, " Happy are the places 

 where this pest is not known." These creatures 

 also occasion great damage among the plants, &c., 

 in kitchen gardens, by burrowing, and by devouring 

 the roots, which causes them to wither. The pe- 

 culiar shape of their fore-arms is well adapted for 

 the purposes of burrowing, both by their great 



