regarded it as probable that he died in Mantua c. 1585/6. But these later works seem to have been by another man of the same name. The epithet “admirable” (admirabilis) for Crichton first occurs in John Johnston’s Heroes Scoti (1603). It is probably impossible to recover the whole truth either as to Crichton’s death or as to the extent of his attainments, which were so quickly elevated into legendary magnitude.
Bibliography.—Sir Thomas Urquhart’s Discovery of a most excellent jewel (1652; reprinted in the Maitland Club’s edition of Urquhart’s Works in 1834) is written with the express purpose of glorifying Scotland. The panegyrics of Aldus Manutius require to be received with some caution, since he was given to exaggerating the merits of his friend, and uses almost the same language about a young Pole named Stanilaus Niegosevski; see John Black’s Life of Torquato Tasso, ii. 413-451 (1810), for a criticism. The Life of Crichton, by P. Fraser Tytler (2nd ed., 1823), contains many extracts from earlier writers; see also “Notices of Sir Robert Crichton of Cluny and of his son James,” by John Stuart, in Proceedings Soc. of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 103-118 (1855); and the article by Andrew Lang, “The death of the Admirable Crichton,” in the Morning Post (London), Feb. 25, 1910. W. Harrison-Ainsworth in his novel Crichton (new ed., 1892) reprints and translates some documents relating to Crichton, as well as some of his poems.
CRICKET (Gryllidae), a family of saltatory Orthopterous Insects, closely related to the Locustidae. The wings when folded form long slender filaments, which often reach beyond the extremity of the body, and give the appearance of a bifid tail, while in the male they are provided with a stridulating apparatus by which the well-known chirping sound, to which the insect owes its name, is produced. The abdomen of the female ends in a long slender ovipositor, which, however, is not exserted in the mole cricket. The house cricket (Gryllus domesticus) is of a greyish-yellow colour marked with brown. It frequents houses, especially in rural districts, where its lively, if somewhat monotonous, chirp may be heard nightly in the neighbourhood of the fireplace. It is particularly fond of warmth, and is thus frequently found in bakeries, where its burrows are often sunk to within a few inches of the oven. In the hot summer it goes out of doors, and frequents the walls of gardens, but returns again to its place by the hearth on the first approach of cold, where, should the heat of the fire be withdrawn, it becomes dormant. It is nocturnal, coming forth at the evening twilight in search of food, which consists of bread crumbs and other refuse of the kitchen. The field cricket (Gryllus campestris) is a larger insect than the former, and of a darker colour. It burrows in the ground to a depth of from 6 to 12 in., and in the evening the male may be observed sitting at the mouth of its hole noisily stridulating until a female approaches, “when,” says Bates, “the louder notes are succeeded by a more subdued tone, whilst the successful musician caresses with his antennae the mate he has won.” The musical apparatus in this species consists of upwards of 130 transverse ridges on the under side of one of the nervures of the wing cover, which are rapidly scraped over a smooth, projecting nervure on the opposite wing. The female deposits her eggs—about 200 in number—on the ground, and when hatched the larvae, which resemble the perfect insect except in the absence of wings, form burrows for themselves in which they pass the winter. The mole cricket (Gryllotalpa vulgaris) owes its name to the striking analogy in its habits and structure to those of the common mole. Its body is thick and cylindrical in shape, and it burrows by means of its front legs, which are short and greatly flattened out and thickened, with the outer edge partly notched so as somewhat to resemble a hand. It prefers loose and sandy ground in which to dig, its burrow consisting of a vertical shaft from which long horizontal galleries are given off; and in making those excavations it does immense injury to gardens and vineyards by destroying the tender roots of plants, which form its principal food. It also feeds upon other insects, and even upon the weak of its own species in the absence of other food. It is exceedingly fierce and voracious, and is usually caught by inserting a stem of grass into its hole, which being seized, is retained till the insect is brought to the surface. The female deposits her eggs in a neatly constructed subterranean chamber, about the size of a hen’s egg, and sufficiently near the surface to allow of the eggs being hatched by the heat of the sun.
CRICKET. The game of cricket may be called the national summer pastime of the English race. The etymology of the word itself is the subject of much dispute. The Century Dictionary connects with O. Fr. criquet, “a stick used as a mark in the game of bowls,” and denies the connexion with A.S. crice or cryce, a staff. A claim has also been made for cricket, meaning a stool, from the stool at which the ball was bowled, while in the wardrobe account of King Edward I. for the year 1300 (p. 126) is found an allusion to a game called creag. Skeat, in his Etymological Dictionary, states that the word is probably derived from A.S. crice (repudiated by the first authority quoted), the meaning of which is a staff, and suggests that the “et” is a diminutive suffix; the word is of the same origin as “crutch.” Finally the New English Dictionary traces the O. Fr. criquet, defined by Littré as “jeu d’addresse,” to M. Flem. Krick, Krüke, baston à s’appuyer, quinette, potence.
History.—In a MS. of the middle of the 13th century, in the King’s library, 14 Bv, entitled Chronique d’Angleterre, depuis Ethelberd jusqu’à Hen. III., there is found a grotesque delineation of two male figures playing a game with a bat and ball. This is undoubtedly the first known drawing of what was destined to develop into the scientific cricket of modern times. The left-hand figure is that of the batsman, who holds his weapon upright in the right hand with the handle downwards. The right-hand figure shows the catcher, whose duty is at once apparent by the extension of his hands. In another portion of the same MS., however, there is a male figure pointing a bat towards a female figure in the attitude of catching, but the ball is absent. In a Bodleian Library MS., No. 264, dated the 18th of April 1344, and entitled Romance of the Good King Alexander, fielders for the first time appear in addition to the batsman and bowler. All the players are monks (not female figures, as Strutt misinterprets their dress in his Sports and Pastimes), and on the extreme left of the picture, the bowler, with his cowl up, poises the ball in the right hand with the arm nearly horizontal. The batsman comes next with his cowl down, a little way only to the right, standing sideways to the bowler with a long roughly-hewn and slightly-curved bat, held upright, handle downwards in the left hand. On the extreme right come four figures—with cowls alternately down and up, and all having their hands raised in an attitude to catch the ball. It has been argued that the bat was always held in the left hand at this date, since on the opposite page of the same MS. a solitary monk is figured with his cowl down, and also holding a somewhat elongated oval-shaped implement in his left hand; but it is unsafe to assume that the accuracy of the artist can be trusted.
The close roll of 39 Edw. III. (1365), Men. 23, disparages certain games on account of their interfering with the practice of archery, where the game of cricket is probably included among the pastimes denounced as “ludos inhonestos, et minus utiles aut valentes.” In this instance cricket was clearly considered fit for the lower orders only, though it is evident from the entry in King Edward’s wardrobe account, already mentioned, that in 1300 the game of creag was patronized by the nobility. Judging from the drawings, it can only be conjectured that the game consisted of bowling, batting and fielding, though it is known that there was an in-side and an out-side, for sometime during the 15th century the game was called “Hondyn or Hondoute,” or “Hand in and Hand out.” Under this title it was interdicted by 17 Edw. IV. c. 3 (1477–1478), as one of those illegal games which still continued to be so detrimental to the practice of archery. By this statute, any one allowing the game to be played on his premises was liable to three years’ imprisonment and £20 fine, any player to two years’ imprisonment and £10 fine, and the implements to be burnt. The inference that hand in and hand out was analogous to cricket is made from a passage in the Hon. Daines Barrington’s Observations on the more Ancient Statutes from Magna Charta to 21 James I. cap. 27. Writing in 1766, he comments thus on the above statute, viz.: “This is, perhaps, the most severe law ever made against gaming, and some of these forbidden sports seem to have been manly exercises, particularly the handyn and handoute, which I should suppose
