HOUSE FLIES, CENTIPEDES. AND OTHER INSECTS. 



55 



about the house for whatever food materials it may discover. Jt feeds 



readily on bread crumbs or almost any food product to which it can 

 get access, and is particularly attracted to liquids, in its eagerness to 

 get at which it often meets death by drowning. It is a very pugnacious 

 insect and will bite vigorously if captured, and is also predaceous or 

 carnivorous, like most of its outdoor allies. It is supposed to feed on 

 various other house insects, such as the cockroach and is also probably 

 cannibalistic. A pair of a native species kept in a cage by the writer. 

 for a short period manifested the greatest friendliness, but the male 

 shortly afterwards made a very substantial meal of his companion. 



The crickets, in common with most other Orthoptera. will occasion- 

 ally, in pure wantonness seemingly, cut and injure fabrics, and are 

 particularly apt to cut into wet clothing, evidently from their liking 

 for moisture. Any of the 

 common field grasshop- 

 pers or crickets, entering 

 houses, are apt to try 

 their sharp jaws on cur- 

 tains, garments^ etc., and 

 Dr. J. A. Lintner records 1 

 the case of a suit of cloth- 

 ing just from the tailor 

 which was completely 

 ruined in a night by 

 a common black field 

 cricket ( Gryllus luctuosus), 

 whiclihad entered an open 

 Avindow in some numbers. 

 There is a popular super- 

 stition also to the effect 

 that if a cricket be killed its relatives will promptly cut the garments 

 of the offender. 



In Europe, and undoubtedly also in this country, the hearth cricket 

 is found in houses in all sizes, from the very young to the full-grown 

 insects, and probably often deposits its eggs and goes through its 

 entire transformations within the four walls of dwellings. In summer 

 it also appears frequently out of doors in Europe about hedges and in 

 gardens, returning to the house for protection at the approach of cold 

 weather, and being apparently unable to winter out of doors, at least 

 in cold climates. In this country it has been taken at electric lights 

 out of doors. Its eggs, judging from our knowledge of allied species, 

 are deposited in clusters, and the young resemble their parents very 

 closely, except in size and in lacking wings: they present also no 

 variation in habit. 



So much superstition and popular interest attaches to the house 



Fig. 22.— Gryllus assityiilis : a. wing of female: b. wing of 

 male showing more irregular and coarser reining — enlarged 

 (original). 



8th Kept. [us, \. ^> .. p. IT!'. 



