CH. XI.] THE CRICKETS. 167 



chamber is about the size of a small egg, though 

 not quite so oval, neatly smoothed and rounded, 

 and within are deposited more than a hundred eggs 

 of a dirty yellow colour. In a month, these give 

 birth to the young, which resemble the parent in 

 every thing but the wings, except that at first they 

 are white, soft, and very small. The careful parent, 

 it is said, not only protects her eggs by forming the 

 oval chamber for them, but surrounds it with a reg- 

 ular defence of ditches and ramparts, about which 

 she herself keeps anxious watch. A iDlack ground- 

 beetle is the enemy from which she has most to 

 dread, but for which the maternal instinct is often 

 more than a match ; for, as it endeavours to creep 

 into the chamber, the mole cricket seizes it, and 

 bites it asunder. " In the middle of April," says 

 White, " at the close of day, these animals begin to 

 solace themselves by a low, dull, jarring note, con- 

 tinued for a long time without interruption, and not 

 unlike the chattering of the goatsucker, but more- 

 inward." When the mole crickets fly, they move 

 in rising and falling curves, somewhat like the first 

 species. They are supposed by some persons to 

 be luminous, and that these animals are probably 

 flie ignis-fatuus, or jack-o'-lantern. 



