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 tenth 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.
(* We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are
then seen lying at the mouths of their holes.)
Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a colony to the
terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in the sloping turf.
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