244 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread, 

 and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have 

 observed them to fly when it became dusk out of the windows, and 

 over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts for 

 the sudden manner in which they often leave their haunts, as it 

 does for the method by which they come to houses where they 

 were not known before. It is remarkable that many sorts of 

 insects seem never to use their wings but when they have a mind 

 to shift their quarters and settle new colonies. When in the air 

 they move " volatu tmdoso" in waves or curves, like wood-peckers, 

 opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so are always 

 rising or sinking. 



When they increase to a great degree, as they did once in the 

 house where I am now writing, they become noisome pests, flying 

 into the candles, and dashing into people's faces ; but may be 

 blasted and destroyed by gunpowder discharged into their crevices 

 and crannies. In families at such times they are like Pharaoh's 

 plague of frogs, " in their bedchambers, and upon their beds, and 

 in their ovens, and in their kneading troughs."* Their shrilling 

 noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Cats catch 

 hearth crickets, and, playing with them as they do with mice, 

 devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, by phials 

 filled with beer, or any liquid, and set in their haunts ; for being 

 always eager to drink, they will crowd in till the bottles are full. 



* Exod. viii. 7 



