For Friends' Intelligencer. THE CRICKET. BY J. G. HUNT. "And with childlike credulous affection, We behold those tender wings expand; Emblems of our own great resurrection, Emblems of the bright and better land." We would interest our young readers a little in the habits and structure of the common cricket. Naturalists call him Acheta, and our species is not the same as the English cricket. His social chirp about the house, or in the fields, these pensive autumn afternoons, surely has endeared him to all of us, even if it has not awakened the curiosity to discover how this curious noise is made. A short walk in the fields, or along some grassy lane, will reveal to us many of these nimble fellows skipping about and perhaps chirping away in all the gladness of summer life. What a merry time they seem to have of it! When other songs cease, and the light fades, and silence creeps over all out-door things, the cricket's shrill chirp is loudest, reminding us that summer is over, and the time of ripe nuts and brown leaves is at hand. ripe fruits, and are happy, and we have found that the cricket, like man, is a very thirsty animal. The sparkling dew-drop is his morning draught, though milk is highly appreciated by our chirping epicures. Nearly all observers say the cricket makes his peculiar chirp with his wings; this is a mistake. He elevates his wing-cases to a certain angle and then rubs them together with a quick lateral motion. That this chirp is solely the result of friction of his wing cases, we proved beyond a doubt by taking a dead cricket and imitating the movement, when the same sound was produced. These cases are very wonderful organs. The right one overlaps the other, and its inner edge is very thin and elastic, and bent down a little towards its fellow, against which it grates when in motion. Both these cases are highly resonant in character, and penetrated all through with hollow ribs, which branch off in o elegant diamond patterns, especially in the female. Strong muscles play these curious fiddles, and large nerves supply the motive power. We have heard the chirp of the same cricket continue for many hours without intermission, but if the strongest man will hold his empty fist out ten minutes, it will exhaust his strength. Life-long silence, we believe, is imposed upon the female cricket, though probably she is not guilty of loving music. With his strong fore legs and hard jaws the cricket digs holes in the banks, often more than a foot in depth, and into these he escapes for safety, and to pass the winter in a nearly torpid condition. The mother cricket is much larger On the head of the cricket grows two long than the male, and is furnished with an oviposi- organs called antennæ, and it is probable the tor, an inch in length, attached to the posterior senses of hearing and touch reside in these apof her body. This organ is composed of two pendages. In one of these antenna we counted separable pieces, like the two halves of a tube one hundred and twelve joints, and each joint split longitudinally, but capable of fitting accu- is a perfect ball and socket capable of motion rately together, and the canal thus formed con- in all directions. It is very curious to see the nects with the egg duct in the body of the cricket. The ovipositor has a double function; with it the insect pierces holes, in the ground, and along its canal the little oval, greenish eggs glide into these holes, where they remain till hatched by the summer sun. The young cricket resembles the adult in form except that the wings are absent; in his next stage of development these organs are rudimentary, and they acquire full size only when the cricket is mature. He casts off his black corselet during these stages of growth, but from the time he hops from the egg, no bigger than a flea, his garments are made of the same kind of cloth and from the same pattern, only his last suit is the biggest. We brought home from the fields a handful of these insects, and turned them loose in our Wardian case, for we were very curious to learn how that chirping song was made; and while we write this in the night's still hour, close at our elbow, under the damp foliage of lycopods and the graceful papyrus, our pets are chirping most merrily. They have eaten bread and rice and cricket deliberately take his fore foot and bend down these long ears into his mouth, and carefully pass every joint over his labial brushes in order to cleanse them. Our merry chirper moreover has three thousand black eyes-we have known persons quite conscious of only two and every one of these requires frequent sponging with his fore legs. Indeed the cricket uses his legs quite dexterously, for if the egg travels too slowly along its canal, he takes his hind feet and gently helps it along. Unlike some other subjects, the cricket is worth looking at a little inside. We suffered one to die easily under chloroform, and then cut him open under water. The apertures in his sides for the air to enter his body-more beautiful in pattern than any of our parlor registers-we could see communicating with innumerable tubes which divide like the branches of a tree, and again subdivide, running between and all over every organ, carrying air to all parts of the body. Muscular bands in countless numbers tie this system of tubing to the other organs and to his body. The French naturalist Lyon. net, it is said, counted four thousand and sixtyone muscles in a caterpillar; we did not count that many in our cricket, but we have evidence that be, and some other insects, possess the power to dilate and contract this entire system of air pipes, thus ventilating themselves at will. Are not such creatures to be envied when the thermometer is at 90°? Sidney Smith did not know about crickets, when he conceived the inelegant plan of sitting in his dry bones to get cool. When all the bright illusion seems The pictured promises of truth; And its faint flashes round the room; I love the quiet midnight hour, I love the night: and sooth to say, Prefer the cricket's grating wing." Appeal from the "Association of Friends of The cricket's food is chiefly solid substances, such as plants and fruits; he bites off the delicate cells from these, and possibly picks out the raphides and the crystals for his candies and sweetmeats, and he swallows everything without chewing. He must therefore have a gizzard The time for re-opening our schools having to grind it fine enough for digestion, and ac-arrived, we again earnestly appeal to Friends cordingly we find that organ to be a strong for aid to support those schools. muscular sack, armed inside with many rows of hard teeth. Insects that take liquid food have no need of gizzards. The musquito steals his banquet from the thin veins of other animals, or starves, and is without a gizzard-we had almost said he does not deserve so beautiful an organ. We continued our exploration of the cricket's food-pipe downwards to the stomach proper, and what, is it supposed, did we find? Not can dies nor sweetmeats, but worms, worms—and enough of them too-of the genus oxyurus, called now, we believe, ascaris; and although our cricket died easy under chloroform, these active, writhing, glassy parasites were alive and happy. Life and happiness in a cricket's foodpipe! What economy of space and fitness of being are here manifested; but not here only, for all over, the earth her visible inhabitants are but a little family compared to the herds that graze within us. If we have said enough to interest our young readers in our subject, it is all we aimed at. Let us now hear what Andrews Norton says of the cricket. We value music for the thoughts it excites within us, or for the sweet emotions it wafts across the chords of our own soul. "I love, thou little chirping thing, But dimly shows the lettered page, And, musing o'er the embers pale, That Fancy fondly weaves for youth, account of what has been done with the means The Third Annual Report will give a detailed furnished. We feel that our labors among the Freedmen have heretofore been greatly blessed, and although they have now arrived at that condition in which they are able to provide for the most pressing of their bodily wants, they yet need help in the education of their children, and we ask you to unite with us in aiding them to prepare for future usefulness. We have 16 schools, numbering 1000 pupils, including evening and First-day schools, under the care of faithful and well qualified teachers. These we shall be under the necessity of recalling, unless the funds in our treasury are mateup the schools already established, but trust rially increased; but we want not only to keep that means will be placed at our disposal to open others in answer to the numerous pressing ap Friends have always been peals made to us. esteemed the friend of the colored man, and we trust that they will still continue to aid him. tions of books, seeds, toys or clothing will also Money to pay teachers is most needed;-donabe acceptable. We appeal to the clerks or interested Friends in each Preparative or Monthly Meeting to lay the subject before Friends at the close of those meetings, and appoint collecting committees. H. M. LAING, Treasurer, 30 N. Third St. Ninth mo. 18, 1867. i FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER. EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENCE. No. 8. 1 the thoughts awakened by Rubens' various pic- one such a vivid sense of his humanity, and ANTWERP, September 1st, 1867. Years ago in America-thirty years ago I brings him so home to one's conscience, that saw a copy of Rubens' "Crucifixion of Christ" all one's humanity is awakened. So many of between the thieves, and never before or since these Catholic pictures give you a passive have I seen a picture that revealed to me so Christ, and the idea of suffering that springs much of the peculiar mission of painting; and from weakness, before which nature faints; but I have now seen the original. This picture, Rubens' Christ gives the idea of suffering that even in a copy-but it was a splendid copy- attends progress only, and which is being conI remember Dr. Channing used to say in his taught me the secret of bearing pain-taught tinually transmuted into heavenly life. me that it was given by God to man to lay down his life and to take it up again by an act parish preaching that the sufferings of Christ of faith. Here we have the impenitent thief were looked at wholly in a false way; that peostruggling against the cross with a fierce agony ple were weakened by having the agonies of the that has torn one of his feet out of the staple cross depicted till physical terror invaded and that had nailed it, and you perceive that in his overcame the spirit. But the true lesson of the fierce resistance every nerve and fibre is quick cross was triumphant joy. It revealed that no ened to realize the whole capacity of man to amount of injury could quench love; that on suffer in physical pain; the penitent thief bas the mount of pain the soul could still forget a slight but increasing relief coming over him itself in thought for others; that human nature What I wish to say respecting Rubens' picas he forgets himself in reverent sympathy for could rise to the height of divine Lature. the innocent sufferer by his side, whom he has recognized to be the Son of God-which every tures is this; they should be sought and studied man may be if he will not stray into a far as masterpieces of art. He was prodigious in country; and there is the Christ, who seems his power. He was conscious of human nature not to have struggled, but to have left his body up to the point of its equality with suffering; in the hands of his tormentors to do with it as he knew therefore how to picture all the sufferthey will, while he has gone into some inward ing of self-sacrifice in all its stages. The "Taplace-into the silence, as you would say-to in-king from the Cross" is indeed a work that quire into the last counsels of God respectHe is dead; he has ing his fellow creatures. said, "It is finished," and the dignity of that utterance has closed those lips with an unutterable majesty. One could not bear the intense reality of the suffering of the thieves-especially the impenitent one-if the feelings were not relieved by the sight of this complete triumph over pain, suggested by the figure of Jesus, who did not struggle, but accepted the cup which His Father had given Him. I do not think that the effect on others of the suffering is taken away by believing in the completeness of the triumph. But the completeness of the triumph reveals a law which only faith, utter faith, enables the human being to seize; and utter faith that reaches such truth must come from utter love, from experimentally knowing that the gift of God to man is that absolute communion with Himself, which shall shed all the infirmities of life, or rather transfigure them into powers of beneficence. There is in the museum at Antwerp an infant Jesus on the lap of his mother, which was the portrait of Rubens' own son, and a picture of intelligent young life such as God only could make; and near this is another crucifixion, representing the last agony. As a friend said to me, "What a sweep of genius to command so perfectly the bliss of childhood and man's extremity" I should really want a ream of paper before me to follow out or even suggest seems unsurpassable. It approaches nearer to It seems to me the effect of Rubens on Ant- But Christ risen is not so visible. Rubens went to the tomb and was faithful to the death, but he never saw the young man who rolled away the stone from the sepulchre (which could not hold the unquenchable life) and sat upon with countenance like lightning and garments white as snow. it THE FREE CITY OF HAMBURGH, September 4th. There cannot be conceived a greater contrast than that between Antwerp and Hamburgh. In Hamburgh I have not seen one emblem of the death of Christ. Its churches are without painted windows and walls, but I find here what I have not perceived elsewhere in Europe so energetically developed-the spirit of Christ risen. I am amazed at the riches of the city. It is not displayed in single public buildings, though these are handsome-so much as in streets, and streets of private dwelling houses built of stone, four or five stories high, and evidently full of rich and happy people. The streets are wide, and face the basins and the Alster River; or are lined with avenues of noble trees. The poor live also in this kind of houses, only they are old, but were formerly inhabited by rich people. Moreover, I see no wretched poverty. The richer Hamburghers dispense of their superfluity to the poorer, and such plans (plans carried out) for the improvement of the poor, and for their relief, I have not seen elsewhere nor heard of. Riding out through the environs of the city, which are made up of beautiful villas like those of Germantown near Philadelphia and of Brooklinenear Boston, I observed two immense buildings with beautiful grounds, one of which was built on three sides of a garden. The architecture was fine, and I was told that the buildings contained three stories divided into suits of three rooms, handsomely furnished, and containing all the conveniences for independent and refined living. Both these buildings were occupied by elderly people who had once been rich and were fallen into poverty, and who lived here rent free, and were well supplied with the comforts of life by a Mr. Schreder, who built these houses at an expense of two millions of dollars. He is a rich Hamburgh merchant, who inherited and has made money to the amount of fifteen millions. He has ten children, to each of whom he gives a million of dollars, and who very promptly acceded to his proposition of spending the rest for more general objects. He with his wife lives in a pretty place in the vicinity of Hamburgh in a very simple way, and they often visit the people whom they have made so comfortable. So much for the private benevolence of one Hamburgher. EVENING HYMN. E. P. P. Thou, from whom we never part, Thou, who seest every heart, Listen to our evening prayer. Love that ever rests on thee. -Religious Magazine. It is with our thoughts as with our flowers -those that are simple in expression, carry their seed with them; those that are double through rich and pomp, charm the mind but produce nothing. THE ANSWER. Spare me, dread angel of reproof, Spare me awhile: the flesh is weak. These lingering feet, that fain would stay . Among the flowers, shall some day seek The strait and narrow way. Take off thy ever-watchful eye, The awe of thy rebuking frown; And press, in summer warmth and calm, My heart its taste of long desire; This day be mine: be those to come As duty shall require. The deep voice answered to my own, Smiting my selfish prayers away: "To-morrow is with God alone, And man hath but to-day. Say not thy fond, vain heart within, "Cast thyself down," the tempter saith, Thongh God be good and free be Heaven, Respects thy sanctity of will. As one who, turning from the light, Watches his own gray shadow fall, No word of doom may shut thee out, A tenderer light than moon or sun, May shine and sound forever on, Forever round the Mercy-seat The guiding lights of Love shall burn; But what if, habit-bound, thy feet Shall lack the will to turn? What if thine eye refuse to see, Thine ear of Heaven's free welcome fail, And thou a willing captive be, Thyself thy own dark jail? O doom beyond the saddest guess, To doubt the love that fain would break JOHN G. WHITTIER. FEED THOSE TREES. Various animals require different kinds of food; so also do the numerous varieties of trees and plants that comprise the vegetable kingdom, -and as the animals thrive by what they feed on, so do the trees flourish by furnishing them with the appropriate elements of fertility. No one would confine an animal and expect it to grow, or even hold its own, without feeding and care; and yet how many purchase fruit trees to plant in neglected, out-of-the-way places, expecting they will grow and bear fruit in due season. The majority who purchase nursery trees will not set them in their gardens, nor on their rich lands, because they would be in the way of the plow, and if they do plow the land where trees are set, they are sure to let the plow run close enough to cut off everything but the body. Dwarf trees are set in turf, where they cannot thrive for want of culture, and cattle are allowed to browse on them in winter. I know more who thus plant than of those who cultivate the tree as a thing of beauty and of profit. A man who thus neglects his trees, expecting they will take care of themselves, is likely to come to his grave before partaking of the fruits his hands have planted. As would you grow a handsome ox, a large cabbage, or field of fine grain, by feeding them, so you can grow your fruit trees, nor will they thrive in other any The writer has a field of several acres devoted to apples, pears and grapes, which is admitted to be equal to any in the State for beauty, vigor and productiveness. The whole are cultivated. No raw or rank manure is put to the ground, but every year or two a compost is made of stable manure, turf and muck, ashes and shell lime, with scrapings and waste of blacksmith shops. When this is well heated and pulverized, a bushel or more is dug in around every pear tree, both standard and dwarf. On this feed they flourish, and are kept healthy. The cause of such loss to the pear orchards is doubtless owing to the excessive forcing by strong unferMany have lost half their mented manures. trees in this way. way. I have never lost one by the frozen sap blight, nor the sun-scald. Dwarfs have done as well as standards, and in some cases have rooted above their junction. This is induced by slitting up the bark of the pear stalk at the junction in the ground, at the season of the descent of the sap. This care and labor for the orchard has paid well with me, and "what man has done man may do."-A. L. L., Granby, Ct. Cultivator and Country Gentleman. It will never do to take it for granted that wrong will right itself. Weeds in a neglected garden, instead of dying out, will grow rampant and choke the good. Evil needs only suffer auce to accomplish all its fell designs. HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL. A person in New York, who, as a dressmaker, has made money and friends, has written to the New York Sun, from her own experience, some hints to young people, who have to select an employment, and make their own way in it. We wish many more persons of experience, of character, who have been successful, and who are actuated by motives of benevolence, would do the same. There is something fresh and useful about living experience, especially where not personal vanity, but the desire to do others good, lies at the basis of the narration. Such information as that may be the means of saving thousands of the young, innocent and energetic from poverty and error. The columns of this paper are studiously and laboriously devoted to the dissemination of all such truths as we can obtain, and are calculated to do good to this large class, upon whom the hopes of this city, and all cities, depend so much. We condense some of the hints from the experience of the lady we have alluded to, and from other sources, for general benefit: 1. Get the best idea of precisely what you want to learn. Some have this very definitely fixed; they want to learn dressmaking or tailoring, or bonnet-making or printing, or drawing and designing, or wood engraving or teaching. Nature and early education, or habit, may have made this clear. But others seek only to earn an independent living. The rough, coarse, easy work of almost all sorts is paid about alike, i. e., the lowest that those who do it can live for. But where skill, energy, and unusual good qualities are required, more will be paid, and to get a clear idea of these qualities, the germ of some one or more of which each one possesses, if only cultivated, is the foundation of good fortune. Many employments pay best at first, because there is no chance to rise by cultivation, or because destructive to health or morals. These are to be most carefully shunned in all their approaches. There are plenty of ways in which young persons can support themselves while learning modes of industry, that, once mastered, will make them independent. But the most perfect health and good, honest associations are above all price. 2. Go to the best place to learn. Make any reasonable sacrifice to get into the best house in the business. "This is not always the largest," adds our lady friend. In too large an establishment the business may be too much cut up into departments. The best is that where the best work is done, where there are fewest tricks, where there is sufficient capital to avoid all make-shifts and mean acts. 3. Use your eyes, head and ears (and tongue, to make inquiry), so as to know not only the particular branch of the business in which you are engaged, but its relations to other branches. |