268 Insect Architecture. 



and manners, at first made an attempt to dig them out with 

 a spade, but without any great success ; for either the bottom 

 of the hole was inaccessible, from its terminating under a 

 large stone, or else in breaking up the ground the poor 

 creature was inadvertently squeezed to death. Out of one 

 thus bruised a great number of eggs were taken, which were 

 long and narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very 

 tough skin. More gentle means were then used, and these 

 proved successful. A pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated 

 into the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and 

 bring out the inhabitant ; and thus the humane inquirer may 

 gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. 



When the males meet, they sometimes fight very fiercely, 

 as Mr. White found by some that he put into the crevices of 

 a dry stone wall, where he wished to have them settle. For 

 though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their 

 knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks 

 seized on all the others that were obtruded upon him with 

 his large 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 with, like the mole -cricket. When taken into the 

 hand, they never attempt to defend themselves, though 

 armed with such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as 

 grow about the mouths of their burrows they eat indiscri- 

 minately, 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. In 

 hot weather, when they are most vigorous, they make the 

 hills echo ; and, in the more still hours of darkness, may be 

 heard to a very considerable distance. "Not many sum- 

 mers ago," says Mr. White, " I endeavoured to transplant a 

 colony of these insects to the terrace in my garden, by boring 

 deep holes in. the sloping turf. The new inhabitants stayed 

 some time, and fed and sang ; but they wandered away by 

 degrees, and were heard at a greater distance every morning ; 

 so it appears that on this emergency they made use of their 



