198 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 platform, 

 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 

 vigorous, they make the hills echo ; and, in the stiller hours of 

 darkness, may be heard to a considerable distance. In the 

 beginning of the season their notes are more faint and inward ; 

 but become louder as the summer advances, and so die away 

 again by degrees. 



Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweet- 

 ness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always displease. We are 

 more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the associations which 

 they promote, than with the notes themselves. Thus the shrilling 

 of the ^eld-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously 

 delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer 

 ideas of every thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. 



About the tenth of March the crickets appear at the mouths 

 of their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very 

 elegantly. All that ever I have seen at that season were in their 

 pupa state, and had only the rudiments of wings, lying under a 

 skin or coat, which must be cast before the insect can arrive at 

 it's perfect state ; * from whence I should suppose that the old 

 ones of last year do not always survive the winter. In August 

 their holes begin to be obliterated, and the insects are seen no 

 more till spring. 



Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a colony 

 to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in the sloping 



1 We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seen 

 lying at the mouths of their holes. 



