NOISES OF INSECTS. 393 



keep them in a box for his amusement. We are told 

 that they have been sold in Africa at a high price, and 

 employed to procure sleep a . If they could be used to 

 supply the place of laudanum, and lull the restlessness 

 of busy thought in this country, the exchange would be 

 beneficial. Like many other noisy persons, crickets like 

 to hear nobody louder than themselves. Ledelius relates 

 that a woman, who had tried in vain every method she 

 could think of to banish them from her house, at last 

 got rid of them by the noise made by drums and trum- 

 pets, which she had procured to entertain her guests at 

 a wedding. They instantly forsook the house, and she 

 heard of them no more b . 



The field-cricket ( Gryllus campestris) makes a shrilling 

 noise still more sonorous than that of the house-cricket 

 which may be heard at a great distance. Mouffet 

 tells us, that their sound may be imitated by rubbing 

 their elytra, after they are taken off, against each other c . 

 " Sounds," says Mr. White, " do not always give us 

 pleasure according to their sweetness and melody ; nor 

 do harsh sounds always displease. 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." One of these crickets when 

 confined in a paper cage and set in the sun, and supplied 

 with plants moistened with water for if they are not 

 wetted it will die will feed, and thrive, and become so 

 merry and loud, as to be irksome in the same room 

 where a person is sitting d . 



a Mouffet, 136. b Goldsmith's Animal. Nat. vi. 28. 



c Ins. Theatr. 134. d Nat. Hist. ii. 73. 



