160 Education through Nature 



are house-crickets, field-crickets, and mole-crickets. They 

 have a shrill, gay little song. The body is not as slender as 

 that of the grasshopper, but is short and thick. He also 

 has a little thin drumhead for his music. His name sug- 

 gests the noise he makes. 



The French call him cri-cri. The field-crickets sing 

 all day, the house-crickets and mole-crickets sing only 

 at night. The cricket has strong jaws, sharp teeth, and 

 a thick round tongue. His feet are not broad and thick 

 like the grasshopper's. He does not run up plants as the 

 grasshopper does. The cricket runs about the ground; 

 he has sharp thin feet. Sometimes he has stiff hairs on 

 them. 



Crickets are fond of moisture, they are thirsty creatures, 

 they will drink any liquid left in the way; they are also 

 greedy and will eat anything, even to woolen clothes. 

 Once a cook laid upon the grass a large piece of woolen 

 blanket on which she had spilled some bread sponge. She ' 

 left it there thirty -six hours; when she went for it the 

 crickets had eaten nearly all of it. The blanket was so full 

 of holes it was like a net. There were more holes than 

 there was blanket. 



Crickets do not like to change their homes; they prefer 

 to stay where they were born. Unless they fly to move from 

 home to home they do not use their wings. They walk or 

 hop. 



The poets or story-tellers are very fond of crickets. Many 

 people think it lucky to have them sing in the hearth. They 

 like new houses, where the mortar is not too hard for them 

 to pick some of it out and make their little home; the 

 field-cricket does this in the fall, choosing the kitchen or 

 well-warmed rooms to live in. Little French children fish 

 for crickets by tying an ant to a thread and dropping it 

 into the hole. You can also make the cricket come out by 

 poking a blade of grass into his hole. 



The field-cricket lays his eggs in the ground. In Spain 

 the people like the cricket's song so much that they keep 

 crickets in little cages to sing for them. If they have plenty 

 to .eat arrd drink they will sing and be happy. Each 

 cricket will need a cage all for himself. Crickets, like 

 grasshoppers, if shut up together, will fight, until one i 



