MOLE CRICKETS. 217 



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 1 ." 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 

 half 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. 



XLVIII. 



How diversified are the modes of life not only 

 of incongruous, but even of congenerous animals ; 

 and yet their specific distinctions are not more 

 various than their propensities. Thus, while the 

 field cricket delights in sunny, dry banks, and 

 the house cricket rejoices amidst the glowing 

 heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the gryllus 

 gryllotalpa (the mole cricket 2 ,) haunts moist 

 meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds, and 

 banks of streams, performing all its functions in 



1 Exod. viii. 3. 



2 Gryllotalpa vulgaris, in some places, where abundant, 

 does great damage to newly-sown seeds, particularly pease, 

 beans, c. W. J. 



