158 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



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 ceconomy : 



" Ingentem lato dedit 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 ! 



