8o HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



diameter and about eighteen inches deep. The crickets 

 had consequently plenty of room to move about in and 

 select a spot they fancied for excavation. 



I tried the first experiment on a black cricket. He 

 was placed under the pan in the afternoon about an 

 hour before sunset. I removed the pan the next 

 morning on returning from my ride. The cricket had 

 dug a hole, in which he was still working. I tested the 

 length of the hole with a stiff stem of grass. I found 

 it to be six inches. The cricket was quite at the end of 

 the hole, and, as I have said, still working. I remained 

 for some little while to watch his performances. He 

 appeared to dig away a certain amount of soil, and 

 then to shovel it back to the mouth of the hole, and 

 from thence to push it out unto the path. As the hole 

 descended at a very steep inclination, the labour of thus 

 shovelling up the earth must have been very consider- 

 able ; and of course it would immensely increase as 

 the hole became longer and deeper. 



Now some of the cricket holes that I had already 

 dug up descended to a depth of between two and three 

 feet below the surface of the ground. The labour of 

 excavating them must have been enormous. These, 

 however, w^ere the holes of the larger jheengoo. 



It was on the jheengoo that my next experiment 

 was performed. I need not repeat the details ; they 

 were the same as those already above described. On 

 removing the pan the next morning, I found that the 

 jheengoo had excavated a tunnel of the length of nine 

 inches. 



The other experiments I need not describe. It is 



