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 kneading-troughs.' * 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 fined
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.
(* Exod. viii. 3.)
Letter XLVIII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
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.
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