NOISES OF INSECTS, 397 
angle with the body, and then rubs them against each 
other by a horizontal and very brisk motion*. The 
learned Scaliger is said to have been particularly de- 
lighted with the chirping of these animals, and was ac- 
customed to keep them in a box for his amusement. 
We are told that they have been sold in Africa at a high 
price, and employed to procure sleep». If they could 
be used to supply the place of laudanum, and lull the 
restlessness of busy thought in this country, the ex- 
change would be beneficial. Like many other noisy 
persons, crickets like to hear nobody louder than them- 
selves. Ledelius relates that a woman, who had tried 
in vain every method she could think of to banish them 
from her house, at last got rid of them by the noise 
made by drums and trumpets, which she had procured 
to entertain her guests at a wedding. ‘They instantly 
forsook the house, and she heard of them no more*. 
The field-cricket (Acheta campestris, F.) makes a 
shrilling noise—still more sonorous than that of the 
house-cricket—which may be heard at a great distance. 
Mouffet tells us, that their sound may be imitated by 
rubbing their elytra, after they are taken off, against 
each other’. Sounds,” says Mr. White, ‘do not al- 
ways give us pleasure according to their sweetness and 
melody; nor do harsh sounds always displease.—Thus 
the shrilling of the field-cricket, though sharp and 
stridulous, yet marvellously delights some hearers, 
filling their minds with a train of summer ideas of every 
2 De Geer, iii. 517. See also White, Nat. Hist. ii. 76 ;—and Rai. 
Hist. Ins. 63. » Mouffet, 136. 
© Goldsmith’s Animat. Nat. vi. 28. 
4 Ins. Theatr, 134. 
