330 The Natural History of Selborne 



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, hap- 

 pening 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 fenestram : 

 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 substance. 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. 



Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects 

 astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that, from the struc- 

 ture, 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 ! 



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

 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. 



