FIELD-CRICKET. 
221 
instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies and 
safe receptacles. 
Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will 
often succeed ; and so it proved in the present case ; for, though 
a spade be too boisterous and rough an implement, a pliant stalk 
of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their 
windings to the bottom, and quickly bring out the inhabitant ; 
and thus the humane enquirer 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 di'iven 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 breed- 
ing 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 the sexes 
have some intercourse, 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 plat- 
form, which they make just by, they drop their dung ; and never, 
in the day time, 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 vi- 
gorous, they make the hills echo ; and, in the stiller hours of dark- 
ness, may be heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning 
