270 NATURAL HISTORY 



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. 1 



LETTER XLVIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE. 



OW 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 gryttotalpa* 

 or mole cricket, haunts moist meadows, and frequents the 

 sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all its 

 functions in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, 

 curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works 

 under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds, 

 but seldom throwing up hillocks. 



As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of 

 canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising 

 up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering 

 the walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters, 

 they occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by 

 destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and 

 flowers. When dug out they seem very slow and helpless, 

 and make no use of their wings by day, but at night they 

 come abroad and make long excursions, as I have been con- 



1 Some additional particulars respecting the house-cricket will be 

 found hereafter in the Observations on Insects. ED. 



2 Gryttotalpa vulgaris, LATR. ED. 



