OF SELBOBNE. 
267 
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 dis- 
please. We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted 
with the associations which they promote, than with the 
notes themselves. 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 everything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. 
About the 10th of March the crickets appear at the 
mouths of their cells, which they then open and bore, and 
shape very elegantly. All that I ever have seen at that 
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 the insects are seen no more 
till spring. 
I^ot many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a 
v^olony 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 on this emergency they made use of their 
wings in attempting to return to the spot from which they 
were taken. 
One of these crickets, when confined in a paper cage and 
set in the sun, and supplied with plants moistened with 
water, will feed and thrive, and become so merry and loud 
as to be irksome in the same room where a person is sitting : 
if the plants are not wetted it will die. 
^ We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are 
then seen lying at the mouths of theii' holes. — G. W. 
