154 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



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. 



About the tenth of March the crickets appear at the 

 mouths of their cells, which they then open and bore, and 

 shape very elegantly. All that ever I have seen at that 

 season were in their pupa state, and had only the rudiments 

 of wings, lying under a skin or coat, which must be cast 

 before the insect can arrive at it's perfect state ; x from 

 whence I should suppose that the old ones of last year do 

 not always survive the winter. In August their holes begin 

 to be obliterated, and the insects are seen no more till 

 spring. 



Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a 

 colony to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes 

 in the sloping turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time, 

 and fed and sung ; but wandered away by degrees, and 

 were heard at a farther distance every morning ; so that 

 it appears that on this emergency they made use of their 

 wings in attempting to return to the spot from which they 

 were taken. 



One of these crickets when confined in a paper cage 

 and set in the sun, and supplied with plants moistened with 

 water, will feed and thrive, and become so merry and loud 

 as to be irksome in the same room where a person is 

 sitting ; if the plants are not wetted it will die. 



1 We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seen 

 lying at the mouths of their holes. [G. W.] 



