394 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare’s Time. 
Fen Cricket, common in fenny places ; but we have met 
with them also in dry places, dunghills, and churchyards, 
of this city [Norwich] ” (vol. iv. p. 338). 
The Grasshopper was regarded as the type of careless 
Grasshopper- * m P rav idence, light-hearted enjoyment of 
the present moment, without thought of the 
morrow :•— 
“ As long liveth tlie mery man (they say), 
As doth the sory man, and longer by a day : 
Yet the grassehopper for all his sommer piping 
Sterveth in winter wyth hungrie gripyng.” 
(Ralph Royster Doyster .) 
Muffett, in his Theater of Insects , says that the grass¬ 
hopper is the only insect that is without a mouth. It is 
provided, according to this writer, with a long proboscis, 
with which it sucks the dew from the grass. This notion 
he derives from his classical authorities, and quotes from 
Plato the information that the grasshopper was conse¬ 
crated to Apollo, and the Muses bestowed upon it this 
boon, that it should only live by singing, not so much as 
mentioning the dew. Ben Jonson writes of some care¬ 
less spendthrift:— 
“ Tut, be will live like a grasshopper—on dew, 
Or like a bear, with licking his own claws.” 
(The Staple of Neivs, v. 2.) 
Unfortunately for farmers this theory of the grasshopper’s 
diet is incorrect. It is a vegetable feeder, and in some 
districts has been known to cause considerable damage to 
the crops. 
According to Ben Jonson, the grasshopper’s chirp was 
more a sound of anger than of pleasure :■— 
a And though the impudence of flies be great. 
Yet this hath so provoked the angry wasps. 
Or, as you said, of the next nest, the hornets, 
That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils. 
