114 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY. 



belief regards as foretelling cheerfulness and plenty. Tlio 

 more just exposition would be, that as crickets revel on the 

 yeast, the crumbs, the milk, the gravy, and all the waste and 

 refuse of a fireside, their presence does not prognosticate that 

 plenty is to come, but that it already exists. In like manner, 

 when they gnaw holes in clothes which are drying at the fire, the 

 naturalist would say, that the action is not done, as is com- 

 monly said, because of injuries they have received, but simply 

 because the moisture which the clothes contain is gratifying 

 to their thirsty palates. 



Shakspeare, Milton, and many other poets, have noticed 

 the chirp of "the Cricket on the Hearth," but none have 

 offered to it a more graceful tribute than Cowper : 



" Thou surpasseth, happier far, 

 Happiest grasshoppers that arc ; 

 Theirs is but a summer's song, 

 Thine endures the winter long, 

 Unimpair'd, and shrill and clear 

 Melody throughout the year." 



The Rev. Gilbert White, in that charming "Natural His- 

 tory of Selborne," which it seems scarcely possible to quote 

 without commendation, devotes a letter to a graphic and 

 interesting account of the habits of the Field-cricket (Acheta 

 campestris). In this he justly remarks, that " sounds 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 everything that is rural, verdurous, 

 and joyous." 



The Cockroaches (Fig. 97), which also belong to the pre- 

 sent order, are regarded with feelings very different from those 

 associated with the crickets. They devour bread, meat, 

 cheese, woollen clothes, and even shoes. On board ship, 

 barrels of rice, corn, and other provisions, are at times com- 

 pletely destroyed by them. In some tropical countries, they 

 swarm by myriads in old houses, making every part filthy 

 beyond description. They sometimes attack sleeping persons, 

 and will even eat the extremities of the dead.* 



There is another insect belonging to the present order, 

 whose very name is associated, not with disgust, but with 



* \Vest\vood, vol. i. page 418. 



