toothed like the shears of a lobster's claws, they perforate and round their curious regular cells, having no fore-claws to dig, like the mole-cricket. When taken in hand, I could not but wonder that they never offered to defend themselves, though armed with such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before the 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 the 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 still 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 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 every thing 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 ever I 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. 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 staid 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 * We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seen lying at the mouths of their holes. 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. LETTER LXXXIX. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE. Far from all resort of mirth MILTON'S Il Penseroso. DEAR SIR,-While many other insects must be sought after in fields, and woods, and waters, the gryllus domesticus,* or house-cricket, resides altogether within our dwellings, intruding itself upon our notice whether we will or no. This species delights in new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased with the moisture of the walls; and, besides, the softness of the mortar enables them to burrow and mine between the joints of the bricks or stones, and to open communications from one room to another. They are particularly fond of kitchens and bakers' ovens, on account of their perpetual warmth.+ Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the short period of one summer, or else doze away the cold uncomfortable months in profound slumbers; but these, residing as it were in a torrid zone, are always alert and merry; a good Christmas fire is to them like the heats of the dog-days. Though they are frequently heard by day, yet is their natural time of motion only in the night. As soon as it grows dusk, the chirping increases, and they come running forth, and are from the size of a flea to that of their full stature. As one should suppose, Acheta domestica, Fabricius. - Ed. †These animals are exceedingly pugnacious, and fight desperately with each other. We have frequently captured crickets, and, having put them into a tumbler covered with paper, have witnessed their battles. Upon more than one occasion we have known them eat each other. We left three of them together in a tumbler, along with some pieces of bread, and, on examining them on the following day, two had been completely devoured, except three of the limbs and the antennæ. The survivor was quite brisk and lively. In return for his misdeeds, we terminated the existence of this insect cannibal, and placed him in our cabinet. Latreille informs us that this cricket eats only insects, and certainly thrives well in houses infested by cockroches. We had always supposed that they lived upon bread, until we discovered them devouring each other. — ED. from the burning atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and shew a great propensity for liquids, being found frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, or the like. Whatever is moist they affect; and, therefore, often gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are hung to the fire; they are the housewife's barometer, foretelling her when it will rain; and are prognostics sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck; of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant companions of her solitary hours, they naturally become the objects of her superstition. * These crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious; for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread; and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have observed them to fly, when it became dusk, out of the windows, and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts for the sudden manner in which they often leave their haunts, as it does for the method by which they come to houses where they were not known before. It is remarkable, that many sorts of insects seem never to use their wings but when they have a mind to shift their quarters and settle new colonies. When in the air, they move volatu undoso, in waves, or curves, like woodpeckers, opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or sinking. When they increase to a great degree, as they did once in the house where I am now writing, they become noisome pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into people's faces; but may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowder discharged into their crevices and crannies. In families, at such times, they are, like Pharaoh's plague of frogs, "in their bed-chambers, and upon their beds, and in their ovens, and in their kneadingtroughs." + Their shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Cats catch hearth-crickets, and, playing with them as they do with mice, devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, by phials 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. * Sir William Jardine says, that, in Dumfriesshire, it is considered lucky to have crickets in a house; but if they disappear from one which they have long inhabited, it is looked upon as foreboding some calamity to the family.ED. + Exod. viii. 3. MOLE-CRICKET. LETTER XC. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 237 SELBORNE. How 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 (the 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, curiously 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 flowers. 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 convinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in improbable places. In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without interruption, and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, but more inward. * This is the gryllotalpa vulgaris of Latreille; the structure of its arms and fore-feet fit it in a peculiar manner for these operations, being of great strength, and moved by a set of muscles admirably fitted for the purpose of digging, giving vigour to these parts. The breast consists of a hard and thick horny substance, strengthened within by a double frame-work of tough gristle, in the front edge of which the shoulderblades are firmly articulated. This structure seems intended to prevent the breast from being injured by the powerful muscles of the arms during the operation of digging. The arms are powerfully formed, and of great breadth, in proportion to the size of the animal; the feet are shaped like two broad hands, and provided with four large broad-based and sharp claws, pointing somewhat obliquely outwards, like the hands of the mole, this being the direction in which the animal digs, throwing the earth on both sides as it advances. - ED. About the beginning of May, they lay their eggs, as I was once an eye-witness; for a gardener, at a house where I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy:— ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram; Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt: Apparent penetralia. There were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within the secret nursery were deposited near an hundred eggs, of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin; but too lately excluded to contain any rudiments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh moved mould, like that which is raised by ants. When mole-crickets fly, they move cursu undoso, rising and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned before. In different parts of this kingdom, people call them fen-crickets, churr-worms, and eve-churrs, -all very apposite names. Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects, astonish me with their accounts: for they say, that from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs, or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this and the two former species ruminate, or chew the cud like many quadrupeds! LETTER XCI. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, May 7, 1779. It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject: new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive. In the last week of last month, five of those most rare birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or loripes, and charadrius himantopus,* were shot upon the verge of Frinsham Pond, * This is the long-legged plover of Bewick, and other British authors. - ED. |