242 
[LETT. 
herbs as grow before tlie mouths of their burrows they eat 
indiscriminately ; and on a little platform, which they make 
just by, they drop their dung ; and never, in the day time, seem 
to stir more than two or three inches from home. Sitting in 
the entrance of their caverns they chirp all night as well as day, 
from tlie middle of the month of May to the middle of July ; 
and in hot weather, when they are most vigorous, they make 
the hills echo; and, in the stiller hours of darkness, may be 
heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning of the 
season their notes are more faint and inward ; but become 
louder as the summer advances, and so die away again by 
degrees. 
Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their 
sweetness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always displease. 
We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the asso- 
ciations which they promote, than with the notes themselves. 
Thus the shrilling ot the field-cricket, though sharp and stri- 
dulous, yet n:arvellously delights some hearers, filling their 
minds with a train of summer ideas of everything that is rural, 
V(^rdurous, and joyous. 
About the 10th of jNIarch the crickets appear at the mouths 
of their cells, ^^■hich they then open and bore, and shape very 
elegantly. They cast their skins in April, which are then seen 
lying at the mouths of their holes. All that ever I have seen 
at tliat season were in their pupa state, and had only the 
rudiments of wings, lying under a skin or coat, which must 
be cast before the insect can arrive at its perfect state; from 
whence I should suppose that the old ones of last year 
do not always survive the winter. In August their holes 
begin to be obliterated, and tlie insects are seen no more till 
spring. 
Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a colony 
to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in the sloping- 
turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time, and fed and 
sung ; but wandered away by degrees, and were heard at a 
farther distance every morning ; so that it appears that in this 
emergency they made use of their wings to return to the spot 
from which they were taken. 
