I snap and I spring:
If I only could catch you,
You rude saucy thing!
If you were not so little,
So cunning and spry,
I'd punish you quickly,
Pert wretch! you should die.

[Illustration]

It darts quick as lightning,--
O woe, and O woe!
On the nose it has stung me:
O, it burns and smarts so!
It pains like a needle,
It gives me no rest;
Oh, the wasp is a creature
I hate and detest.

[Illustration]

He knows he has hurt me,
Away now he darts;
Oh, poor little puppy!
It smarts and it smarts!
To think such an insect
Should worry a dog!
He could not have hurt me,
If I'd been a log!

MORE ABOUT CRICKETS.

WE keep crickets in a box, and find them very interesting. They are very
active, and occupy themselves in laying eggs, digging holes, eating,
singing, and running. Only the males sing, and their wings are very
rough, and curiously marked.

Crickets have four different kinds of wings,--yellow, brown, black, and
brownish-red. Those that have yellow wings seem to be less hardy than
the others. They do not sing so well, but lay and eat more.

The brown-winged crickets are quite common, but not so common as the
black-winged, which are the most common of all kinds. Brownish-red
crickets are very rare. Those that are black with yellow spots where
the wings come out, sing the best.

The eggs are yellow, about an eighth of an inch long, and of an oval
shape.

When we were in Lynn, a very handsome yellow-winged singer came into the
box, and ate three crickets. We put him in another box with his mate,
which he brought with him. In the same box were a large female, and a
common sized white-winged cricket, both of which he ate.

[Illustration]

Afterwards we found in his place a black-winged singer, somewhat smaller
than the yellow-winged one was; but his mate remained the same as
before.

Some spiders make holes in the ground, and, when the crickets go into
them, the spiders eat them.

The male crickets fight with each other, singing all the while; and the
one that beats sings on, all the louder.

There is another kind of cricket that is a great deal smaller, and sings
much longer, in an undertone. Its wings are always yellow or brown; but
we do not