A FARMER S FRIENDS AND FOES 



A Wild the habits of the sparrow-hawk. In the 

 Garden's garden-marsh is a dense patch of bamboo, 

 Dragon whither a flock of starlings resort nightly, 

 finding it a desirable roosting-place. But 

 always the sparrow-hawk is lying in wait, like some 

 fabled dragon, and he never fails to take his toll. So 

 he has been known to devote his exclusive attention to 

 one small bit of wild fenland, striking at every teal that 

 comes in, and to haunt a spinney where he can dine 

 off wood-pigeon for a long season. But we hope that a 

 good thing credited to Sam Weller was not taken from 

 life : " I'll be with you in a minute, as the sparrow-hawk 

 said when he heard the robin singing round the 

 corner." 



A FARMER'S FRIENDS AND FOES 



WHEN the lights are out in the farmhouse kitchen, the 

 crickets come forth for their midnight 

 Cricket of revels, and at this season atoms of baby 

 the Hearth crickets appear, learning to run and leap. 

 Gilbert White delighted in surprising his 

 kitchen crickets with a candle, as they sported on his 

 hearth at Selborne, to note how their guardians would 

 utter two or three shrill notes, as a signal to all to bolt 

 to their crannies. Crickets are fastidious about their 

 hearths, and sometimes seek fresh quarters by migrating. 

 They are remarkable examples of insects which have 

 abandoned the open-air life of their own accord; for 

 nowhere, according to naturalists, either in the old or 

 new world, is the house-cricket known to live out-o'- 

 doors. 



157 



