272 
NATURAL HISTORY 
nursery were deposited near a hundred eggs of a dirty yellow 
colour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately ex- 
cluded 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 ! * 
^ In the Hunterian Collection are preparations of the singularly 
complex stomach here alluded to as it exists in the mole cricket 
(No. 611) and in the locust (Nos. 474, 610). "The structure," says 
Professor Owen, in a note to this passage, " is similar in both, as 
to the number of cavities, but differs in their relative positions. The 
first cavity, or crop, is formed in the locust by a gradual dilatation of 
the gullet ; but in the mole cricket it is appended, like the crop of a 
granivorous bird, to one side of the gullet, communicating with it by 
a lateral opening. The canal which intervenes between the crop and 
gizzard is relatively longer in the mole cricket than in the locust. Its 
gizzard is small, but armed internally with longitudinal rows of com- 
plex teeth. Two large lateral pouches open into the lower part, or 
termination, of the gizzard. The analogy between this digestive appa- 
ratus and that of the ruminants is vague, and does not extend beyond 
the number of cavities. It is more like that of the bird ; and since the 
comminuting or masticating organs are situated, as in the feathered 
class, in the stomach, it cannot be supposed that the food is again re- 
turned to the mouth, where it has already received aU the division 
which the oral instruments can effect." — Ed. 
