256'
“ troughsI.” Their (hrilling noife is occafioned by a briik
attrition of their wings. Cats catch hearth-crickets, and, playing
with them as they do with mice, devour them. Crickets may be
deftroyed, like wafps, by phials half filled with beer, or any
liquid, and fet in their haunts; for, being always eager to drink,
they will crowd in till the bpttles are full.
L E T T E R XLVIII,
TO TH E S A M E ,
Selborne.
H o w diverfified are the modes of life not only of incongruous
but even of congenerous animals; and yet their fpecific diftinc-
tions are not more various than their propenfities. Thus, while
the field-cricket delights ip funny dry banks, and the houfe-cricket
rejoices amidft the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the
gtyllus gryllo talpa (the mole-cricket), haunts moift meadows, and
frequents the fides of ponds and banks of ftreams, performing all
it’s fundtions in a fwampy wet foil. With a pair of fore-feet,
curioully adapted to the purpofe, it burrows and works Under
ground like the mole, raifing a ridge as it proceeds, but feldonj
throwing up hillocks.
1 Exod, viii. 3, As
As mole-crickets often infeft gardens by the fides of canals,, they
are unwelcome guefts to the gardener, raifing up; ridges in: their
fubterraneous progrefs, and rendering the walks unlightly,. M
they take to: the- kitchen quarters, they occaftoii: great damage
among the plants and: roots, by deftroying whole beds, of cabbages,
young legumes, and flowers. When dug out they
feem very flow and helplefs, and make no ufo of then wings by
day ; but at night they come abroad, and make long, excurfions,
as I have been convinced by finding ftragglers, in a morning, in
improbable places. In fine weather, about the middle, of April,
and juft at theclofe of day, they begin tofolace themfelves- with
a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a. long time without
interruption, and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or
goat-fucker, but more inward.
About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was once
an eye-witnefs : for a gardener at an houfe, where I was on a
vifit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that month, by the
fide of a canal, his fcythe ftruck too deep, pared off a large piece
of turf, and laid open to view a curious fcene of domeftic
ceconomy :
tt _ . — — ingentem lato dedit ore feneftram:.
<« Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patefcunt:
« Apparent — — ■— penetralia.”
There were many caverns and winding paflages leading to a
kind of chamber, neatly fmoothed and rounded, and about the
fize of a moderate fnuff-box. Within this fecret nurfery were
depofited near an hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and
enveloped in a tough lkin, but too lately excluded to contain any
rudiments of young, being full of a vifcous fubftanee. The eggs
l i lay