A COLONY OF FIELD CRICKETS 185 



he speaks of the keen pleasure it gave him to listen 

 to the field cricket, he writes in a somewhat apolo- 

 getic strain: "Sounds do not always give us pleasure 

 according to their sweetness and melody, nor do harsh 

 sounds always displease. We are more apt to be 

 captivated or disgusted with the associations which 

 they promote than with the notes themselves. 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 delight I know, but I cannot wholly agree 

 with the explanation. A couple of months before 

 this visit to Selborne, on May 25, on passing some 

 small grass fields, enclosed in high, untrimmed hedges, 

 on the border of a pine wood near Hythe, by South- 

 ampton Water, I all at once became conscious of a 

 sound, which indeed had been for some considerable 

 time in my ears, increasing in volume as I went on 

 until it forced my attention to it. When I listened, 

 I found myself in a place where field crickets were 

 in extraordinary abundance ; there must have been 

 many hundreds within hearing distance, and their 

 delicate shrilling came from the grass and hedges 

 all round me. It was as if all the field crickets 

 in the county had congregated and were holding a 

 grand musical festival at that spot. A dozen or 

 twenty house crickets in a kitchen would have made 

 more noise; this was not loud, nor could it properly 



