The Zoologist— Octobek, 1871. 2793 



underground : therefore they are very anxious and solicitous of 

 conserving, and making firm this glebe ; therefore they prepare for 

 a certain subteraneous Ductus round about the Glebe, that they 

 may go round about and preserve it; besides, about this Glebe 

 they have other holes and hiding places, whither in time of 

 necessity they may fly. Again, they know how to raise up their 

 nests by a wonderful industrie, in a hot and dry season that they 

 may almost touch the siiperfices of the earth, that by so much the 

 better, and sooner the egs may be cherished with the heat of the 

 sun and hatch ; on the contrary, the air inclining to cold and 

 humiditie, they do sink lower into ground their nests. I have 

 observed also the Field Crickets to have wings, but not to fly, but 

 for ornament; that with them they may cover and preserve the very 

 tender hinder part of the body. In the Island Wallachia of Zealand 

 there are many field crickets, and they do much hurt to the young 

 and tender corn, which they saw in two with their mouth, and cut 

 the roots. The Gardiuers, that they may remove them, put into 

 the ground little pots, that the upper lips may be equal with the 

 superfices of the ground, the Field Crickets falling into these 

 cannot get out. Or their nests are to be broken and the egs 

 spoiled." * 



George Roberts. 



Lofthouse, near Wakefield. 



The Birds of New Zealand. By T. H. Potts, Esq. 



[It will be within the recollection of most of my readers that I published 

 a list of the birds of New Zealand, at p. 7464. of the ' Zoologist' for 1861. 

 This was from the pen of Mr. J. B. EUmau, who had frequently been a 

 correspondent of the ' Zoologist ' previously to his removal to the antipodes. 

 Mr. EUman's observations on the habits and character of birds are far too 

 curt to satisfy the miuute investigator, but are invaluable as correct informa- 

 tion, and as dependent for the most part on his own personal observation. 



* The mole cricket is represented in the plate. In Curtis's ' Farm Insects,' there 

 is a description of the nest of the mole cricket, which agrees tolerably well with the 

 above, written two hundred years ago. Curtis says, " In June, or at the commence- 

 ment of summer, the female constructs in the vicinity of her burrows a nest half a 

 foot deep in the earth; it is two inches long and one inch deep, formed like an oval 

 bottle with a curved neck, which communicates with the surface, and the inside 

 surface is smoothed for the reception of the eggs, which amount to three hundred 

 or four hundred, and after they ai'e deposited the female accurately closes the 

 entrance." — G. R. 



