21-1: IXSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



with a parcel of these eggs now before us, which are trans- 

 lucent, gelatinous, and greenish. 



Like the eggs and young of other insects, however, those 

 of the mole-cricket are exposed to depredation, and par- 

 ticularly to the ravages of a black beetle which burrows in 

 similar localities. The mother insect, accordingly, does not 

 think her nest secure till she has defended it, like a fortified 

 town, with labyrinths, intrenchments, ramparts, and covert 

 ways. In some part of these outworks she stations herself 

 as an advanced guard, and when the beetle ventures within 

 her circumvallations, she pounces upon him and kills him. 



The Field-Cricket. 



Another insect of this family, the field-cricket (Acheta 

 campestris), also forms burrows in the ground, in which it 

 lodges all day, and comes out chiefly about sunset to pipe 

 its evening song. It is so very shy and cautious, however, 

 that it is by no means easy to discover either the insect 

 or its burrow. " The children in France amuse themselves 

 with hunting after the field-cricket ; they put into its hole 

 an ant fastened by a long hair, and as they draw it out the 

 cricket does not fail to pursue it, and issue from its 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 demanding 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 Eev. 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 

 * Entomologie, par R. A. E. ISmo., raris, 182G, p. 168. 



