Mouffet marvels at its extreme lankness, inasmuch as there is not “found in the belly any superfluity at all, although it feed on the moisture of flesh and fat of broth, to which, either poured out or reserved, it runs in the night; yea, although it feed on bread, yet is the belly always lank and void of superfluity.”—(Theatre of Insects, p. 96.)
White of Selborne, again, says, “as one would suppose, from the burning atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and show a great propensity for liquids, being frequently found dead in pans of water, milk, broth, or the like. Whatever is moist they are fond of, and therefore they often gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are hung to the fire. These crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious; for they will eat the scummings of pots, yeast, bread, and kitchen offal, or sweepings of almost every description.”—(Nat. Hist. of Selborne.)
The cricket is evidently not fond of hard labour, but prefers those places where the mortar is already loosened, or at least is new, soft, and easily scooped out; and in this way it will dig covert channels from room to room. In summer, crickets often make excursions from the house to the neighbouring fields, and dwell in the crevices of rubbish, or the cracks made in the ground by dry weather, where they chirp as merrily as in the snuggest chimney-corner. Whether they ever dig retreats in such circumstances we have not ascertained, though it is not improbable they may do so for the purpose of making nests.
“Those,” says Mr. Gough of Manchester, “who have attended to the manners of the hearth-cricket, know that it passes the hottest part of the summer in sunny situations, concealed in the crevices of walls and heaps of rubbish. It quits its summer abode about the end of August, and fixes its residence by the fireside of kitchens or cottages, where it multiplies its species, and is as merry at Christmas as other insects in the dog-days. Thus do the comforts of a warm hearth afford the cricket a safe refuge, not from death, but from temporary torpidity, though it can support this for a long time, when deprived by accident of artificial warmth.
“I came to a knowledge of this fact,” continues Mr. Gough, “by planting a colony of these insects in a kitchen, where a constant fire was kept through the summer, but which is discontinued from November till June, with the exception of a day once in six or eight weeks. The crickets were brought from a distance, and let go in this room, in the beginning of September, 1806; here they increased considerably in the course of two months, but were not heard or seen after the fire was removed. Their disappearance led me to conclude that the cold had killed them; but in this I was mistaken; for a brisk fire being kept up for a whole day in the winter, the warmth of it invited my colony from their hiding-place, but not before the evening; after which they continued to skip about and chirp the greater part of the following day, when they again disappeared—being compelled, by the returning cold, to take refuge in their former retreats. They left the chimney-corner on the 25th of May, 1807, after a fit of very hot weather, and revisited their winter residence on the 31st of August. Here they spent the summer merely, and at present (January, 1808) lie torpid in the crevices of the chimney, with the exception of those days on which they are recalled to a temporary existence by the comforts of the fire.”—(Reeve, Essay on the Torpidity of Animals, p. 84.)
M. Bery St. Vincent tells us that the Spaniards are so fond of crickets that they keep them in cages like singing-birds.—(Dict. Classique d’Hist. Nat. Art., Grillon. Rennie’s Insect Architecture, 4th edit. p. 242.)
Associated as is the chirping song of the cricket family of insects with the snug chimney-corner, or the sunshine of summer, it affords a pleasure which certainly does not arise from the intrinsic quality of its music. “Sounds,” says White, “do not always give us pleasure according to their sweetness and melody; nor do harsh sounds always displease. Thus, the shrilling of the field-cricket (Acheta campestris), 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.”—(Nat. Hist. of Selborne, ii. 73.)
“Sounds inharmonious in themselves, and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns,
And only there, please highly for their sake.”