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 tho 
season their notes are more faint and inward ; but become 
