236 NATURAL HISTORY 



of their wings by day ; but at night they come abroad, and 

 make long excursions, as I have been convinced by finding 

 stragglers, in a morning, in improbable places. In fine 

 weather, about the middle of April, and just at the close of 

 day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring 

 note, continued for a long time without interruption, and not 

 unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, but 

 more inward. 



About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was 

 once an eye-witness: for a gardener at an house, where I was 

 on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that month, 

 by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a 

 large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of 

 domestic oeconomy : 



{< ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram : 



" Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 

 t( Apparent penetralia." 



There were many caverns and winding passages leading to 

 a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about 

 the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within this secret nursery 

 were deposited near an hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, 

 and enveloped in a" tough skin, but too lately excluded to 

 contain any rudiments of young, being full of a viscous 

 substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the in- 

 fluence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh-moved 

 mould, like that which is raised by ants. 



When mole-crickets fly they move " cursu undoso" rising 

 and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned before. 

 In different parts of this kingdom people call them fen- 

 crickets, churr-worms, and eve-churrs, all very apposite names. 



Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these 

 insects, astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that, 

 from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs, 

 or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this 

 and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud like 

 many quadrupeds * ! 



* [The following note "by Professor Owen is copied from Mr. Bennett's 

 edition, p. 354. " In the Hunterian Collection are preparations of the 



