448 hc Natural History of Se I borne 



Blattce tnolendinarice, we find that at intervals a fresh detach- 

 ment of old ones arrives, and particularly during this hot 

 season ; for the windows being left open in the evenings, the 

 males come flying in at the casements from the neighbouring 

 houses, which swarm with them. How the females, that seem 

 to have no perfect wings that they can use, can contrive to get 

 from house to house does not so readily appear. These, like 

 many insects, when they find their present abodes overstocked, 

 have powers of migrating to fresh quarters. Since the Blattcv 

 have been so much kept under, the crickets have greatly in- 

 creased 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 profounclest slum- 

 bers, 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. Cimices lineares are now in high copula- 

 tion on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly exceed the 

 males in bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the 

 water with the males on their backs. When a 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, 



