320 



NOISES OF INSECTS. 



louder than themselves. 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. 1 



The field-cricket (Gryllus campestris) 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. 2 " Sounds," 

 says Mr. White, " do not always 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 

 thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous." One of these 

 crickets when confined in a paper cage and set in the sun, 

 and supplied with plants moistened with water — for if they 

 are not wetted it will die — will feed, and thrive, and become 

 so merry and loud, as to be irksome in the same room where 

 a person is sitting. 3 



Having never seen a female of that extraordinary animal 

 the mole-cricket {Gryllotalpa vulgaris), I cannot say what 

 difference obtains in the reticulation of the elytra of the two 

 sexes. The male varies in this respect from the other male 

 crickets, for they have no circular area, nor do the nervures 

 run so irregularly ; the areolets, however, towards their base 

 are large, with very tense membrane. The base itself also is 

 scarcely at all elevated. Circumstances these, which demon- 

 strate the propriety of considering them distinct from the 

 other crickets. This creature is not, however, mute. Where 

 they abound they may be heard about the middle of April 

 singing their love-ditty in a low, dull, jarring, uninterrupted 



1 Goldsmith's Animat. Nat. vi. 28. 2 Ins. Theatr. 134. 



3 Nat. Hist. ii. 73. Yet it would appear that when wholly removed from the 

 scent of their mother-earth they are silent, for it is stated by Southey that on the 

 ship of Cabeza de Vaca approaching the coast of Brazil, the proximity of land 

 was inferred, and as the result proved, truly, by a ground cricket which a soldier 

 had brought from Cadiz then beginning again to sing. (Hist, of Brazil.) 



