FIELD-CRICKET. 245 



retreat. Pliny informs us it might be captured in a 

 much more expeditious and easy manner. If, for 

 instance, a small and slender piece of stick were to 

 be thrust into the burrow, the insect, he says, would 

 immediately get upon it for the purpose of demand- 

 ing the occasion of the intrusion : whence arose the 

 proverb stultior grillo (more foolish than a cricket), 

 applied to one who, upon light grounds, provokes his 

 enemy, and falls into the snares which might have 

 been laid to entrap him."* 



The Rev Mr White, who attentively studied 

 their habits and manners, at first made an attempt 

 to dig them out with a spade, but without any 

 great success; for either the bottom of the hole 

 was inaccessible, from its terminating under a large 

 stone, or else, in breaking up the ground, the poor 

 creature was inadvertently squeezed to death. Out 

 of one thus bruised, a great number of eggs were 

 taken, which were long and narrow, of a yellow 

 colour, and covered with a very tough skin. More 

 gentle means were then used, and these proved suc- 

 cessful. A pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated 

 into the caverns, will probe their windings to the 

 bottom, and bring out the inhabitant; and thus the 

 humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without 

 injuring the object of it. 



When the males meet, they sometimes fight very 

 fiercely, as Mr White found by some that he put into 

 the crevices of a dry stone wall, where he wished to 

 have them settle. For though they seemed distressed 

 by being taken out of their knowledge, yet the first that 

 got possession of the chinks seized on all the others 

 that were obtruded upon him with his large row of 

 serrated fangs. With their strong jaws, toothed like 

 the shears of a lobster's claws, they perforate and 



* Entomologie, par R. A. E., 18mo., Paris, 1826, p. 16S, 

 FOL. Iv^ 21* 



