276 FIELD-CRICKETS. 



gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of 

 it. It is remarkable, that, though these insects are 

 furnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs 

 for leaping, like grasshoppers ; yet, when driven 

 from their holes, they show no activity, but crawl 

 along in a shiftless manner, so as easily to be taken : 

 and again, though provided with a curious apparatus 

 of wings, yet they never exert them when there 

 seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only 

 make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of rivalry and 

 emulation, as is the case with many animals which 

 exert some sprightly note during their breeding 

 time : it is raised by a brisk friction of one wing 

 against the other. They are solitary beings, living 

 singly male or female, each as it may happen ; but 

 there must be a time when the sexes have some 

 intercourse, and then the wings may be useful, per- 

 haps during the hours of night. When the males 

 meet, they will fight fiercely, as I found by some 

 which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, 

 where T should have been glad to have made them 

 settle : for though they seemed distressed by being 

 taken out of their knowledge, yet the first that got 

 possession of the chinks, would seize on any that 

 were obtruded upon them, with a vast row of serrated 

 fangs. With their strong jaws, toothed like the 

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

 their curious regular cells, having no fore-claws to 

 dig, like the mole -cricket. When taken in hand, I 

 could not but wonder that they never offered to 

 defend themselves, though armed with such for- 

 midable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before 

 the mouths of their burrows, they eat indiscrimi- 

 nately ; and, on a little platform, which they make 

 just by, they drop their dung; and never in the 

 day-time seem to stir more than two or three inches 

 from home. Sitting in the entrance of their caverns, 



