270 NATUBAL HISTORY 
mice, devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, 
by pMals half filled with beer, or any liquid, and set in their 
haunts ; for, being always eager to drink, they will crowd 
in till the bottles are full.^ 
LETTER XLYIIL 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTO^f. 
Selborne. 
5; OW diversified are the modes of life not 
only of incongruous but even of congenerous 
^ animals; and yet their specific distinctions 
are not more various than their propensities. 
Thus, while the field-cricket delights in sunny 
dry banks, and the house-cricket rejoices amidst the glowing 
heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the Gryllus gryllotalpa,^ 
or mole cricket, haunts moist meadows, and frequents the 
sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all its 
functions in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, 
^.uriously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works 
under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds, 
but seldom throwing up hillocks. 
As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of 
canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising 
up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering 
the walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters, 
they occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by 
destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and 
fiowers. When dug out they seem very slow and helpless, 
and make no use of their wings by day, but at night they 
come abroad and make long excursions, as I have been con- 
^ Some additional particulars respecting the house-cricket will be 
found hereafter in the Observations on Insects. — Ed. 
2 Gryllolalpa vulgaris, Latr. — Ed. 
