2i8 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 oeconomy : 



" 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- 

 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 XLIX 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON 



Selborne, May 7, 1779. 

 It is now more than forty years that I have paid some 

 attention to the ornithology of this district, without being 



