246 NATURAL IJISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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. 



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 declit 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-mowed 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, all very apposite names. 



Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects 

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

 structure, 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 J 



