In certain countries of Africa, Crickets are reported to constitute an article of commerce. Some persons rear them, feed them in a kind of iron oven, and sell them to the natives, who are very fond of their music, thinking it induces sleep.[293] De Pauw finds some traces of the Egyptian worship of the Scarabæus in this fondness for the music of the “holy Crickets,” as he calls them, of Madagascar! By the rearing of which insects, he tells us, the Africans make a living, and the rich would think themselves at enmity with heaven, if they did not preserve whole swarms in ovens constructed expressly for that purpose.[294] The youth of Germany, Jaeger says, are extremely fond of Field-crickets, so much so, that there is scarcely a boy to be seen who has not several small boxes made expressly for keeping these insects in. So much delighted are they, too, with their music, that they carry these boxes of Crickets into their bed-rooms at night, and are soothed to sleep with their chirping lullaby.[295] On the contrary, others, as has been before mentioned, think there is something ominous and melancholy in the Cricket’s cry, and use every endeavor to banish this insect from their houses. “Lidelius tells us,” says Goldsmith, “of a woman who was very much incommoded by Crickets, and tried, but in vain, every method of banishing them from her house. She at last accidentally succeeded; for having one day invited several guests to her house, where there was a wedding, in order to increase the festivity of the entertainment, she procured drums and trumpets to entertain them. The noise of these was so much greater than what the little animals were accustomed to, that they instantly forsook their situation, and were never heard in that mansion more.”[296] Like many other noisy persons, Crickets like to hear nobody louder than themselves. In the Island of Sumatra, Capt. Stuart tells me, a black Cricket is looked upon with great respect, amounting almost to adoration. It is deemed a grievous sin to kill it. Baskets full of Field-crickets, Lopes de Gomara says, were found among the provisions of the Indians of Jamaica when they were first discovered.[297] “The Criquet called Gryllus,” says Pliny in the words of Holland, “doth mitigat catarrhs and all asperities offending the throat, if the same bee rubbed therewith: also if a man doe but touch the amygdals or almonds of the throat, with the hand wherewith he hath bruised or crushed the said Criquet, it will appease the inflamation thereof.”[298] Again, “The Cricket digged up and applied to the plase, earth and all where it lay, is very good for the ears. Nigridius,” continues Pliny, “attributeth many properties to this poore creature, and esteemeth it not a little: but the Magicians much more by a faire deale: and why so? Forsooth because it goeth, as it were, reculing backward, it pierceth and boreth a hole into the ground, and never ceaseth all night long to creake very shrill.