FIELD-CRICKET. 221 



instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies and 

 safe receptacles. 



Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will 

 often succeed ; and so it proved in the present case ; for, though 

 a spade be too boisterous and rough an implement, a pliant stalk 

 of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their 

 windings to the bottom, and quickly bring out the inhabitant ; 

 and thus the humane enquirer may 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 breed- 

 ing 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 perhaps 

 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 I 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 

 formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before the mouths 

 of their burrows they eat indiscriminately ; and on a little plat- 

 form, 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 vi- 

 gorous, they make the hills echo ; and, in the stiller hours of dark- 

 ness, may be heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning 



