The cause of this longevity is obvious. Nothing wears one out so quickly as life. The wild Crickets have gaily spent their reserves of energy on the ladies; the more fervent their ardour, the speedier their dissolution. The others, their incarcerated kinsmen, leading a very quiet life, have acquired a further period of existence by reason of their forced abstinence from too costly joys. Having neglected to perform the superlative duty of a Cricket, they obstinately refuse to die until the very last moment. A brief study of the three other Crickets of my neighbourhood has taught me nothing of any interest. Possessing no fixed abode, no burrow, they wander about from one temporary shelter to another, under the dry grass or in the cracks of the clods. They all carry the same musical instrument as the Field Cricket, with slight variations of detail. Their song is much alike in all cases, allowing for differences of size. The smallest of the family, the Bordeaux Cricket, stridulates outside my door, under the cover of the box borders. He even ventures into the dark corners of the kitchen, but his song is so faint that it takes a very attentive ear to hear it and to discover at last where the insect lies hidden. In our part of the world, we do not have the House Cricket, that denizen of bakers’ shops and rural fireplaces. But, though the crevices under the hearthstones in my village are silent, the summer nights make amends by filling the country-side with a charming symphony unknown in the north. Spring, during its sunniest hours, has the Field Cricket as its musician; the calm summer nights have the Italian Cricket (Œcanthus pellucens, Scop.). One diurnal, the other nocturnal, they share the fine weather between them. By the time that the first has ceased to sing, it is not long before the other begins his serenade. The Italian Cricket has not the black dress and the clumsy shape characteristic of the family. He is, on the contrary, a slender, fragile insect, quite pale, almost white, as beseems his nocturnal habits. You are afraid of crushing him, if you merely take him in your fingers. He leads an aerial existence on shrubs of every kind, or on the taller grasses; and he rarely descends to earth. His song, the sweet music of the still, hot evenings from July to October, begins at sunset and continues for the best part of the night. This song is known to everybody here, for the smallest clump of bushes has its orchestra. It is heard even in the granaries, into which the insect sometimes strays, attracted by the fodder. But the pale Cricket’s ways are so mysterious that nobody knows exactly the source of the serenade, which is very erroneously ascribed to the Common Black Cricket, who at this period is quite young and silent.