ORDER III. STRAIGHT-WINGED INSECTS. 115 



The HOUSE or DOMESTIC CRICKET (Acheta domestica) is 

 smaller than the Field-cricket, being about one inch long, 

 and of a yellowish color. It dwells in the cracks of walls 

 and floors, particularly in bake-houses and breweries, and 

 wherever else they can find bread, and meal, and moistened 

 grain, for they are always thirsty ; and in houses, if they 

 can not get a sufficiency of water elsewhere, they attack 

 wet shoes and clothes. They are provided with wings, 

 with which they fly from place to place, and from house to 

 house ; and there have been people superstitious enough to 

 believe that if a Cricket flies from another house into theirs 

 and commences its melancholy song, it is a signal of the 

 death of some member of the family. But such supersti- 

 tious are not common nowadays; on the contrary, their 

 presence is very generally considered an omen of good, and 

 among country people every where the song of the Cricket 

 is agreeable and highly prized. 



It is a true remark that the deepest emotions are those 

 most noiseless. When the patriot Lafayette visited this 

 country many years ago, he was received with distinguished 

 applause and parade wherever he went ; the citizens of 

 every city and village through which he passed exerted 

 themselves to the utmost to do him honor, and the country 

 resounded with the merry ringing of bells, with the trum- 

 pet of jubilee, and with the booming cannonade. But the 

 greatest compliment paid him, and that which affected his 

 noble heart most deeply, was in a little country village, in 

 which there was no band of music, no firing of guns, no 

 soldiery, no parade, but at the entrance of which the in- 

 habitants met him with uncovered heads and waving hand- 

 kerchiefs as he passed under the arch they had erected over 

 the road, and which bore this inscription : 



"Come then, Expressive Silence, muse his praise!" 

 And so it is with the mind of man, generally ; any thing 



