HEARING IN INSECTS. 81 



of summer ideas of every thing that is rural, ver- 

 durous, and joyous*." 



" Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, 

 Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, 

 And only there, please highly for their sake." 



COWPER, Task, book i. 



This circumstance, no doubt, causes the Spaniards 

 to keep them in cages, as we do singing-birds. White 

 tells us, that, if supplied with moistened green leaves, 

 they will sing as merrily and loud in a paper cage as 

 in the fields ; but he did not succeed in planting a 

 colony of them in the terrace of his garden, though 

 he bored holes for them in the turf to save them the 

 labour of digging. 



Swammerdam entertained a different notion of 

 their music. " I remember,'* says he, " that I 

 once saw a whole field full of these singing crickets, 

 each of which had dug itself a hole in the earth two 

 fingers deep, and then, sitting at the entrance thereof, 

 they made a very disagreeable noise with the creak- 

 ing and tremulous motion of their wings : when they 

 heard any noise they immediately retired with fright 

 into their little caverns f." 



The hearth-cricket (Acheta domestica), again, 

 though we hear it occasionally in the hedge-banks 

 in summer, prefers the warmth of an oven or a good 

 fire, and thence, residing as it were always in the 

 torrid zone, is ever alert and merry, a good 

 Christmas fire being to it what the heats of the dog- 

 days are to others. Though crickets are frequently 

 heard by day, yet their natural time of motion is only 

 in the night. As soon as it becomes dark, the 

 chirping increases, and they come running forth, and 

 are often to be seen in great numbers, from the size 

 of a flea to that of their full stature. Like the field- 

 * Nat. Hist, of Selborne, ii. 73. 

 t Biblia Nature, i. 95. 



