THE HOUSE-CRICKET i8i 



the fore tibia are two oval spaces, each overspread by a tense 

 membrane, not unlike the tympanic membrane on a frog's 

 head, and serving, like it, to receive and transmit the sound- 

 vibrations of the air. 



Crickets are fond of many kinds of vegetable food, especially 

 such as contain starch. They frequent the warmest nooks 

 that they can find during the cold season; in summer they 

 sometimes venture out-of-doors. They leap, chiefly when 

 they are startled or find themselves surrounded; at other 

 times they run about ; when necessary they fly readily, but 

 are not often seen in the air. They are of nocturnal habit, 

 beginning to chirp towards night. Unlike the field-cricket, 

 which lays its eggs in summer, and disappears before autumn, 

 the house-cricket, favoured by the warmth of the hearth, 

 propagates at all seasons, so that there is no time of year 

 when immature and mature individuals do not occur. 



The native place of the house-cricket is not certainly 

 known, and it cannot at this day be discovered as a wild 

 species in any part of the world. The same may be said 

 of some other animals and plants, which have become closely 

 associated with man. We do not know precisely where our 

 dogs and cats, nor where wheat, maize, and tobacco came 

 from ; we cannot say with certainty what is the native country 

 of any one of them, nor from what wild species they have 

 sprung. 



