The Natural History of Se I borne 345 



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. 1 



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 economy : 



" . . . . Ingentem lato dedit ore fene strain : 

 Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 

 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 sub- 

 stance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the influence 

 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, 2 all very apposite names. 



1 Its note still more strikingly resembles that of the grasshopper-warbler. 

 D. 2 White, I think, is mistaken in supposing that the word eve- 

 churr refers to the mole-cricket. It is a variant on the name night-jar, 

 now commonly applied to the fern-owl, or goat-sucker. In the form of 

 eve-jar it has been introduced into literature by Mr. George Meredith in 

 his exquisite poem, " Love in a Valley." ED. 



