166 IN NATURE'S WAYS 



leaping, like grasshoppers, yet when disturbed they 

 only crawled along in a shiftless manner (though at 

 times they can leap magnificently), and that when 

 taken in hand they never offered to defend themselves 

 with their strong, toothed jaws. It is the males only 

 that make the chirping noise. On each forewing is a 

 kind of file and drum, and the chirping is produced 

 by the quick rubbing of one wing over the other. 



In Gilbert White's day the housewife held many 

 superstitious ideas about house-crickets ; they foretold 

 good luck or ill the approach of an absent lover or the 

 death of a relation ; and when they were specially 

 noisy their music was a sign of rain at hand. 



In places where field-crickets abound, they seem 

 sometimes to assemble to hold a music festival, and in 

 hundreds raise the delicate, shrilling song, their 

 musical humming filling the air. Their concerts they 

 give in the early summer, but the house-cricket, 

 living always in a warm, indoor climate, is ready to 

 oblige with its chirping song all the year round. 



Mole-crickets are not so abundant as field-crickets, 

 for which farmers may be thankful, as these work great 

 havoc when they attack growing crops. They are well 

 named, as they live the burrowing life of the mole ; 

 their forelegs are much like those of the little gentleman 

 in black velvet, while their strong claws and cylindrical 

 bodies enable them to drive their way easily through 

 soft ground. 



Crickets are great fighters, and when two strong mole- 

 crickets engage in a duel, it is woe to the vanquished, 

 for as soon as he is beaten his corpse is devoured. 



The life-story of this mole-like insect opens on a 

 June day, when the mother cricket lays the egg from 

 which it will presently develop. She lays in the month 

 perhaps two hundred tiny yellow eggs, in a small hole 



