ACHETID^E — CRICKETS. 93 



Owels, ravens, Crickets, seem the watch of death, 



Gaule mentions, amonf^ other vain observations and su- 

 perstitious ominations thereupon, "the Cricket's chirping 

 Ijehind the cinmney stack, or creeping on the foot-pace.'" 



Dr. Nathaniel llorne, after saying that "by the flying 

 and crying of ravens over their houses, especially in the 

 dusk of evening, and when one is sick, they conclude death," 

 adds, " the same they conclude of a Cricket crying in a 

 house where there was wont to be none."'^ 



" Some sort of people," says Mr. Ramsay, in his Elmin- 

 thologia, " at every turn, upon every accident, how are they 

 therewith terrified ! If but a Cricket unusually appear, or 

 they hear but the clicking of a Death-watch, as they call it, 

 they, or some one else in the family, shall die !"^ 



Gilbert White, the accurate naturalist of Selborne, speak- 

 ing of Crickets, says : " They are the house wife's barometer, 

 foretelling her when it will rain ; and are prognostics some- 

 times, she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death of a near 

 relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the 

 constant companions of her solitary hours, they naturally 

 become the objects of her superstition."^ 



The voice of the Cricket, says the Spectator, has struck 

 more terror than the roaring of a lion. 



Mrs. Bray also notices that the Cricket's chirp in England, 

 which in almost all other countries, and in that too in some 

 families, as will be shown hereafter, is considered a cheerful 

 and a welcome note, the harbinger of joy, — is deemed by 

 the peasantry ominous of sorrow and evil.^ 



"In Dumfries-shire," says Sir William Jardine, "it is a 

 common superstition that if Crickets forsake a house which 

 they have long inhabited, some evil will befall the family ; 

 generally the death of some member is portended. In like 

 manner the presence or return of this cheerful little insect 

 is lucky, and portends some good to the family."*' 



Melton also says, — "17. That it is a sign of death to 



1 Mag-astromancers Posed and PuzzeVd, p. 181. 



2 Dxmonologia, 1650, p. 59. 



3 EJmlnth., 8vo. Lond., 16G8, p. 271. 

 * Nat. Hist, of Selborne, p. 255. 



5 Tamar and Tavy, i. 321. 



6 The Mirror, xix. 180. 



9* 



