84 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[ArixiLl, 1SG5. 



CRICKET ON THE HEAETII. 



On showing a very beautiful and perfect miero- 

 photogtapL, by Dr. Abercrombie, of the so-called 

 tongue {liyuld) of the house-cricket {Acliefa clo- 

 mestica), the question arose, "What do crickets 

 eat ? " Now, our little merry fireside-chirpers seem 

 never to have confided this secret to mortal ears, 

 not even in the celebrated duet on the hearth when 

 " kettle began it." One reason for this may be that 

 the ladies of the family, who might be expected to 

 look after the larder, are dumb poor things. So 

 Xeuarchus, or some crusty old Greek, wrote : — 



" Happy are the crickets' lives, 

 Since they all have silent wives." 



The power of emitting the " crique ! crique ! " vv* c 

 hear is possessed only by tiie male insect, and is 

 produced by a truly musical instrument, a sort of 

 drum or tambourine formed of a part of the parch- 

 ment, or partially horny substance, of the short 

 upper wings, which in these Orthoptera take the 

 place of the more elaborate wing-sheaths, called 

 elytra, of the beetles ; across or against this little 

 drum, the cricket has the power of rubbing the 

 toothed or corrugated inner edges of these upper 

 partially sheathing wings — sometimes called tegmina 

 — which fold a little over each other. In this way 

 a pretty loud sound can be produced. 



There is au elegant legend quoted by Dr. Shaw, 

 in his volume VI., as from the Greek, of a cicada, 

 which, as it might easily apply to our present friends, 

 it may be allowable to repeat as gossip : — " A tale 

 is related by ancient authors of two rival musicians, 

 Eunomus, of Locris, and Aristo, of lihegium, alter- 

 nately playing for a prize; when one of the can- 

 didates was so unfortunate as to break a string of 

 his lyre; by which accident he would certainly have 

 failed ; when a cicada, flying near, happened to settle 

 on his lyre, and by its own note supplied the de- 

 fective string, and thus enabled the favoured can- 

 didate to overcome his antagonist. So remarkable 

 was this event that a statue was erected to perpe- 

 tuate the memory of it, in which a man is represented 

 playing on a lyre, on which sits a cicada." 



Although the lady crickets are dumb, we must 

 presume they are not deaf; Shakespeare does not 

 consider them so when he says :—" I will whisper 

 it gently, so tJiat not even your crickets shall hear." 

 The cricket then sounds his gong to sunnnon the 

 iadics from the tortuous passages and caves scooped 

 •out by their strong mandibles in the mortar of our 

 Avails, to joiu the festive IjOJird, when he finds some 

 •dainty crumbs scattered on ilie floor, particularly if 

 they should be moist ; for these chirpers arc thirsty 

 creatures, and have been known to devour holes in 

 any wet woollen articles left by the kitchen-fire,— 

 most likely for the sake of the moisture. Thcv ;irc 



said to have no objection to a savoury meal on a fat, 

 juicy cockroach, and that the latter always abscond 

 from places where crickets abound. 



Sir W. Jardine states, on the authority of Ivoch, 

 that the cricket has the characteristics of omni- 

 vorous animals, in possessing both incisive and 

 molar teeth, of which he gives a figure on Plate YI. 

 of his "Introduction to Entomology" in the ''Na- 

 turalist's Library ; " and they appear to have a strong 

 propensity for nibbling and gnawing. A tender, 

 young passion-flower was planted in a warm corner 

 of my conservatory, adjoining the kitchen-chimney, 

 where numbers of these crickets were continually 

 chirping, as fast as the poor little plant sent forth 

 promise of young leaves, they were eaten ofl', and 

 the tender tv/igs regularly decorticated by some sort 

 of little, nibbling teeth, just as rabbits often bark 

 young trees in a plantation. Now, the crickets were 

 never actually caught in tlie fact of feeding on the 

 plant; so their friends n)ay consider this charge 

 against them as not proven ! But' as nothing else 

 likely to have eaten them could ever be traced, and 

 the crickets were constantly heard in suspicious 

 vicinity, there is at least strong presumptive evi- 

 dence which, perhaps, some keener observer may 

 be inclined to follow up. 



The Rev. Gilbert White records that "in the 

 summer we have observed them to fly, when it be- 

 came dusk, out of the windows and over the neigh- 

 bouring roofs." 



M. Bory de Saint- Vincent relates that the Spaniards 

 have such an afi'ectiou for these little creatures that 

 they construct neat little cages for them, and hang 

 them up like singing birds. 



M. Latreille thinks they live chiefly on insects ; 

 in summer, the house-crickets make long excursions 

 into the fields and gardens, where they sing avray 

 merrily in the open air, during the warm summer- 

 evenings ; but usually return by the end of August 

 to their haunts, near ovens, or kitchen-hearths, — a 

 habit which calls forth this little address from the 

 bard of Olucy to the " Cricket on the Hearth " :— 



" Thou surpasscst, happier far. 

 Happiest grasshoppers that are : 

 Their's is but a summer's song; 

 Thine endures the Avinter long. 

 Unimpaired and shrill and clear — 

 Melody throughout the year." 



P. S. B. 



What we know, is a point to what we do not 

 know. Open any recent journal of science, and 

 weigh the problems suggested concerning light, 

 heat, electricity, magnclism, physiology, geology, 

 and judge whether the interest of natural science 

 is likely to be soon exhausted. — limemon. 



A man is fed, not tliat he may be led, but that lie 

 m;iy WQ^A^.—Tjiiicrson. 



