Crickets do not like to change their homes. They prefer to stay near where they were born. If you carry them away they will use their big wings to get home. Unless they fly to move from home to home, they do not use their big wings very much. They walk, or hop. The poets and story-tellers are very fond of crickets. Many people think it is lucky to have them sing in the hearth. But there is no luck about it. It is very pleasant and cheery to hear them sing. In hot weather the house cricket sometimes goes into the garden to live. In October he comes in, and finds a home in the house-wall. He likes new houses where the mortar is not too hard for him to pull some of it out and make his little home. He chooses the kitchen and other well-warmed rooms to live in. If the house is shut up and without fires for some days the cricket becomes torpid. What do you suppose these little fellows did before they found men to build houses for them? In houses they keep quiet all day. They are timid things. Perhaps they sleep. At night they come out. One wise old man who wrote about crickets said that the tiny, new crickets came out on the hearth-stone by hundreds. They were about the size of fleas. He found all sizes at the same time. So he thought that they hatch at any time if they live in a warm place. The field cricket makes his house in the earth. He seeks a hot, sunny spot. Then he digs out a hole with his strong jaws. This hole is often from six to twelve inches deep. The cricket is very timid and runs into his hole if any one comes by. But if he is not afraid, he sits in the door of his house to catch insects that come near. He also eats leaves and grass, that grow about his door. Little French children fish for crickets by tying an ant to a thread and dropping it into the hole. You can also make Mr. Cricket come out, by poking a blade of grass into his hole. He runs up to see what is the matter. Down in the bottom of the hole, Mrs. Cricket lays her eggs. They are fastened to each other, and to the ground by a kind of glue. She lays about three hundred eggs each year. She does not put them all in one place. As soon as the larvæ come out of the eggs, they run up to the top of the ground. Each one then begins to dig a new burrow. Now and then they get tired of a burrow, and go off to make a new one. The little crickets in the larva and pupa state look much like the grown ones, only they have no wings. When they are about half-grown, they hop about, and look, and act, much like tiny toads. If the crickets come out of the egg in July, they will reach the perfect state the next May. When they are full grown, they have wings, and can play a tune. They like that. They sit in their doors and sing. In Spain, the people like the cricket’s song so much that they keep crickets in little cages, to sing for them. If they have plenty to eat and drink, they will sing and be happy.