MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 367 



most effectually to remove the earth when it burrows. 

 By the help of these powerful instruments, it is asto- 

 nishing how instantaneously it buries itself. This 

 creature works under ground like a field-mouse, raising 

 a ridge as it goes ; but it does not throw up heaps like 

 its namesake the mole. They will in this manner un- 

 dermine whole gardens ; and thus in wet and swampy 

 situations, in which they delight, they excavate their 

 curious apartments, before described. — The field- 

 cricket (Acheta campestris) is also a burrower, but by 

 means of difi^erent instruments ; for with its strong 

 jaws, toothed like the claws of a lobster, but sharper, 

 in heaths and other dry situations it perforates and 

 rounds its curious and regular cells. The house-cricket 

 {A. domestica), which, on account of the softness of the 

 mortar, delights in new-built houses, with the same 

 organs, to make herself a covered-way from room to 

 room, burrows and mines between the joints of the 

 bricks and stones'*. 



But of all the burrowing tribes, none are so nume- 

 rous as those of the order Ilj/menoptera. Wherever 

 you see a bare bank, of a sunny exposure, you always 

 find it full of the habitations of insects belonging to it; 

 — and besides this, every rail and old piece of timber is 

 with the same view perforated by them. Bees ; wasps'; 

 bee-wasps {Bembex) ; spider-wasps (Pompilus) • fly- 

 wasps (3Iellinus, Cerceris, Crabro), with many others, 

 excavate subterranean or ligneous habitations for their 

 young. None is more remarkable in this respect than 

 the sand-wasp {Ammophila, K.), or as it might be better 

 named — since it always commits its eggs to caterpillars 



" White Nat. Hist. n. SO. T2. 7G, 



