2GG NATURAL HISTORY 



bring out tlie inhabitant ; and thus the humane inquirer 

 may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. 

 It is remarkable that, though these insects are furnished 

 with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like 

 grasshoppers, yet when driven from their holes they show 

 no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless manner, so as 

 easily to be taken; and again, though provided with a 

 curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them when 

 there seems to be the greatest occasion. The males 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, living singly, male or female, each as it 

 may happen ; but there must be a time when they pair, 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 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 daytime, 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 



