NATURAL HISTORY 
ledge, yet the firft that got poffeflion of the chinks would feize 
oil any that were obtruded upon them with a vaft row of ferrated 
fangs. With their ftrong jaws, toothed like the fiiears of a lobfter'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 them- 
fclves, though armed with fuch formidable weapons. Of fuch herbs 
as grow before the mouths of their burrows they eat indifcrimi- 
nately; and on a little platform, which they make juft by, they 
drop their dung ; and never, in the day time, feem to flir 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 Mny to the middle of July; and in hot weather, 
Vv hen they are mofl vigorous, they make the hills echo ; and, in the 
ililler hours of darknefs, may be heard to a confiderable diftance. 
In the beginning of the feafon their notes are more faint and in- 
ward ; but become louder as the fummer advances, and fo die 
away again by degrees. 
Sounds do not always give us pleafure according to their fweet-- 
nefs and melody; nor do harfh founds always difpleafe. We are 
more apt to be captivated or difgufted with the affociations which 
they promote, than with the notes thenifelves. Thus the fhrilling 
of ficU-cricket, though fliarp and ftridulous, yet marvelloufly 
delights fome hearers, filling their minds with a train of fummer 
ideas of every thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. 
About the tenth of March the crickets appear at the mouths of 
their cells, which they then open and bore, and fliape very ele- 
gantly. All that ever I have feen at that feafon were in their pupa 
ftate, and had only the rudiments of wings, lying under a Ikin or 
coatj 
