286 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 



of ovens. Poda says that these and house crickets will not as- 

 sociate together ; but he is mistaken in that assertion, as Lin- 

 naeus suspected he was. They are altogether night insects, 

 lucifugce, never coming forth till the rooms are dark and still, 

 and escaping away nimbly at the approach of a candle. Their 

 antennae are remarkably long, slender, and flexile. 



October 1790. After the servants are gone to bed, the kitchen 

 hearth swarms with young crickets, and young blattae molendi- 

 narice of all sizes, from the most minute growth to their full 

 proportions. They seem to live in a friendly manner together, 

 and not to prey the one on the other. 



August 1792. After the destruction of many thousands of 

 blatttB molendinarice, we find that at intervals a fresh detachment 

 of old ones arrives, and particularly during this hot season : for 

 the windows being left open in the evenings, the males come 

 flying in at the casements from the neighbouring houses, which 

 swarm with them. How the females, that seem to have no per- 

 fect wings that they can use, can contrive to get from house to 

 house, does not so readily appear. These, like many insects, 

 when they find their present abodes over-stocked, have powers 

 of migrating to fresh quarters. Since the blatta have been so 

 much kept under, the crickets have greatly increased in num- 

 ber.* 



HOUSE CRICKET. GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS. 



NOVEMBER. After the servants are gone to bed, the kitchen 

 hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as fleas, which 

 must have been lately hatched. So that these domestic insects, 

 cherished by the influence of a constant large fire, regard not 

 the season of the year, but produce their young at a time when 

 their congeners are either dead, or laid up for the winter, to pass 

 away the uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers, 

 and a state of torpidity. 



When house-crickets are out, and running about in a room in 

 the night, if surprised by a candle, they give two or three shrill 

 notes, as it were for a signal to their fellows, that they may 

 escape to their crannies and lurking holes, to avoid danger. 



* There are several species of these blattae (or cockroaches) now commonly found about our 

 Iwellings. ED. 



