238 MOLE-CRICKET. 



About the beginning of May, they lay their eggs, as I was 

 once an eye-witness ; for a gardener, at a 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 loo deep, pared off' a 

 large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of 

 domestic economy : 



ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram ; 



Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 

 Apparent penetralia. 



There were many caverns and winding passages leading tf 

 a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about 

 the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within the secret nursery 

 were deposited near an hundred eggs, of a dirty yellow colour, 

 and enveloped in a tough skin ; but too lately excluded to con- 

 tain 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 moved 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 ! 



LETTER XCI. 



TO THE EION. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, May 7, 1779. 



IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some atten- 

 tion to the ornithology of this district, without being able to 

 exhaust the subject : new occurrences still arise as long as any 

 inquiries are kept alive. 



In the last week of last month, five of those most rare birds, 

 too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to 

 naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or loripes, and charadriw 

 himantopus,* were shot upon the verge of Frinsham Pond, 



* This is the long-legged plover of Bewick, and other British authors. 

 ED. 



