16 FIELD CRICKETS. 



that we can get a peep (except by stratagem) at his black, 

 gold- striped, shining jacket, or at the more duskily-coloured 

 and more portly person of his female partner, who wears the 

 pacific sword of a " sauterelle d sabre" No sooner are thes6 

 timid little animals warned by their long antennal ears, direct- 

 ed to all quarters like those of a hare, that footsteps are ap- 

 proaching, than, forthwith ceasing their chirp, they pop down 

 into their holes among the grass, at the mouths of which they 

 usually take up their stations. 



After having essayed in vain to dislodge them by the spade 

 from their subterranean citadels, it was found by Mr. White 

 that the insertion of a straw or pliant bit of grass would probe 

 the windings of their caverns, and bring to upper air the poor 

 disquieted inhabitants. In a somewhat similar manner 

 French children are said to fish for field crickets with long 

 lines of horsehair, baited with an ant. 



Early in March, the field cricket, with wings as yet covered 

 in their cases, and so enveloped till the month of April, opens 

 his cell's mouth, and, sitting at its entrance, sings, or, to speak 

 more correctly, plays through the summer days and nights, 

 on to August, when all trace of him, audible and visible, 

 disappears, with the obliteration even to the entrance to his 

 late abode. The field cricket, like the grasshopper, is accus- 

 tomed to fill up pauses in his music, by licking, ever and 

 anon, his feet and whiskers with his rounded tongue, which, 

 together with his jaws, is of course employed also, at other 



