128 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[June 1, 1SG5. 



wings of the insect is inserted between tlwj layers 

 composing the scale, and forms a little raised ridgo. 



The accompanying figure is magnified about GOO 

 diameters. We need not doubt the possibility of 

 so frail a subject as the dust ofi' a butterfly's wing 

 being preserved through ages of time; for many 

 delicate insect vestiges, even gnats and ants, have 

 been found in the Miocene beds, and associated 

 witli the leaves and branches of fossil ferns in tlie 

 coal measures ; and Sir Charles Lyell, in his latest 

 work on geology, published in 1865, gives, on the 

 authority of Professor Oswald Heer, a very re- 

 markable instance of a fossil Yanessa (a tolerably 

 near relation of our English Camberwell beauty, or 

 peacock butterflies), in the brown coal of Radaboj, 

 near Angram, in Croatia, so perfect that the pattern 

 on the butterfly's wing has escaped obliteration ; 

 " and when we reflect on the remoteness of the time 

 from which it has been faithfully transmitted to us, 

 this fact may inspire the reader with some confi- 

 dence as to the reliable nature of the characters 

 which other insects may aff'ord." 



The Vanessa figured (see Lyell, p. 243), retains, 

 says Heer, some of its colours, and corresponds 

 with V. Hadena of India. The accompanying 

 plants in the Miocene marlstone of Kadaboj are 

 tropical, including several palms. 



P. S. B. 



WHAT DO CRICKETS EAT? 



T" WAS smoking, and my chimney, from some cause 

 -^ unexplained, and always most mysterious in 

 the habits of chimnej^s generally, deemed it ex- 

 pedient to smoke also, and puffing out spasmodically 

 vast volumes of pungent gas, drove me to seek 

 I'cfuge in the cook's sanctuary, the kitchen chimney 

 being the only one free from bad habits, and sociably 

 warm and comfortable, as a respectable and well- 

 conducted chimney ought to be. Everything was 

 still and quiet, and as I sat watching the curling 

 wreaths of fragrant smoke (as all Englishmen do), 

 that, making their way up from the cosy pipe, twist 

 and turn themselves into all sorts of strange fantastic 

 shapes, my reverie was disturbed by a slight rustling 

 noise, that evidently came from under the grate. 

 On looking down, I saw at first about a dozen 

 "nasty black-beetles" (cockroaches) making most 

 erratic and hurried gallops through the cinders. It 

 was quite clear that something was wrong. A 

 hawk suddenly wheeling over a hedge, and coming 

 plump among a flight of small birds — a beadle 

 appearing like a ghost amidst a crowd of mischievous 

 urchins— would have hardly created a greater panic, 

 or produced a more general state of disturbance. 

 The cause was soon evident : slowly marcliing from 

 their holes in the walls, came a sortie of crickets — 

 big, powerful, handsome fellows they were. Just 



as greyhounds course a hare, or the hunting-spider 

 pounces on his prey, so did the crickets set upon 

 and wage deadly war on the cockroaches. Quick 

 as thought a cricket pounced upon and seized a 

 cockroach much larger than himself, and, fixing his 

 powerful nippers on him, like a steel trap, dragged 

 him olT to the hole, and, backing in, tugged the 

 luckless beetle to inevitable destruction. It was 

 often a stiff trial of strength, a rough-and-tumble 

 battle; but the "paleface" always had the best of 

 it, and invariably vanquished and tugged away his 

 dingy foe. Several crickets I watched backing up 

 the smooth iron of the stove, each with a heavy 

 beetle in its mouth ; twice I saw a beetle slip from 

 its captor, and fall to the ground, but no sooner had 

 he reached the floor than another cricket had 

 him, or the one who had lost his prisoner would 

 rush down and again grab him savagely, and try the 

 system of backing up again. I never saw one at- 

 tempt to carry up the load ; they knew, by some 

 inherent and marvellous intelligence, that it was 

 easier to drag it up than to carry it. There was 

 one Brobdingnag beetle, that evidently depended for 

 safety on size and strength ; whether he scorned to 

 seek safety by running away, or whether he was 

 too fat and portly for rapid progression, I could not 

 clearly make out ; at any rate, I saw him set upon 

 several times and seized; but "no go." He was 

 manifestly too ponderous to be upset or towed 

 away, so he remained during the battle looking on 

 in sullen indifference. I watched this hunt among 

 the black-beetles for some time, until the cricket- 

 hunters, having each bagged his beetle, disappeared 

 into their lodges, and I, growing sleepy, turned into 

 bed, and turned over in my mind this to me novel 

 proceeding on the part of this household pet. I 

 have watched the " cricket on the hearth " on and 

 off since I was a boy, and knew him to be of a prowling, 

 dishonest, destructive disposition, given to nibbling 

 holes in stockings left to dry, eating the black off 

 boots, making predatory excursions over the kitchen 

 dresser for stray bits of anything nice ; but never 

 did I know he was such a blood-thirsty cannibal as 

 I then discovered him to be. 



A lady and gentleman witnessed the conflict as 

 well as myself, so I could not have been deceived, 

 or, having smoked myself into a state of nightmare, 

 have dreamt it. No, it was all true ; the cherished 

 little minstrel enshrined in poetic fancies, celebrated 

 alike in song and story as gentle, innocent, com- 

 panionable, the embodiment of every domestic virtue, 

 was a sanguinary savage — a very Dahomey. 



It may be said in his favour, that the black gentle- 

 man he destroyed was a most objectionable pest; 

 but, nevertheless, it does not exempt him from the 

 charge of being a murderer, and all his poetrj', like 

 " Othello's occupation," has gone from me for ever. 



J. K. Lord, F.Z.S. 



