*The Natural History of Se I borne 339 



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 formidable weapons. 

 Of such herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows 

 they eat indiscriminately, 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 they chirp 

 all night as well as day from the middle of the month of May 

 to the middle of July; and in hot weather, when they are 

 most vigorous, they make the hills echo, and in the stiller 

 hours of darkness may be heard to a considerable distance. 

 In the beginning of the season their notes are more faint and 

 inward but become louder as the summer advances, and so 

 die away again by degrees. 



Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their 

 sweetness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always displease. 

 We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the associ- 

 ations which they promote than with the notes themselves. 

 Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket, though sharp and 

 stridulous, yet marvellously delights some hearers, filling their 

 minds with a train of summer ideas of everything that is rural, 

 verdurous, and joyous. 



About the loth of March the crickets appear at the mouths 

 of their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very 

 elegantly. All that ever I have seen at that season were in 

 their pupa state, and had only the rudiments of wings, lying 

 under a skin or coat, which must be cast before the insect can 

 arrive at its perfect state ; * from whence I should suppose 

 that the old ones of last year do not always survive the winter. 

 In August their holes begin to be obliterated, and the insects 

 are seen no more till spring. 



Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a 

 colony to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in 



* We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then 

 seen lying at the mouths of their holes. 



