FIELD CRICKETS. 273 



only make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of 

 rivalry and emulation, as is the case with many 

 animals which exert some sprightly note during 

 their breeding time ; it is raised by a brisk friction 

 of one wing against the other. They are solitary 

 beings, Irving singly male or female, each as it 

 may happen ; but there must be a time when the 

 sexes have some intercourse, and then the wings 

 may be useful perhaps during the hours of night. 

 When the males meet, they will fight fiercely, as 

 I found by some which I put into the crevices of 

 a dry 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 thenjselves, though armed with such for- 

 midable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before 

 the mouths of their burrows, they eat indiscrimi- 

 nately ; 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 still hours of darkness, may be heard to a 

 considerable distance. In the beginning of the 

 season, their notes are more faint and inward ; but 



