would have had if moulded by an egg, the walls being neatly smoothed and polished. In this little cell were deposited about a hundred eggs, of the size and form of caraway-comfits, and of a dull tarnished white colour. The eggs were not very deep, but just under a little heap of fresh mould, and within the influence of the sun's heat.* The dull tarnished white colour, however, scarcely agrees with a parcel of these eggs now before us, which are translucent, gelatinous, and greenish.

Like the eggs and young of other insects, however, those of the mole-cricket are exposed to depredation, and particularly to the ravages of a black beetle which burrows in similar localities. The motherinsect, accordingly, does not think her nest secure till she has defended it, like a fortified town, with labyrinths, intrenchments, ramparts, and covert ways. In some part of these outworks, she stations herself as an advanced guard, and when the beetle ventures within her circumvallations, she pounces upon him and kills him.

Another insect of this family, the field-cricket (Acheta campestris), also forms burrows in the ground, in which it lodges all day, and comes out chiefly about sun-set to pipe its evening song. It is *Nat. Hist. of Selborne, ii. 82.

so very shy and cautious, however, that it is by no means easy to discover either the insect or its burrow. "The children in France amuse themselves with hunting after the field-cricket; they put into its hole an ant fastened by a long hair, and as they draw it out the cricket does not fail to pursue it, and issue from its retreat. Pliny informs us it might be captured in a much more expeditious and easy manner. If, for instance, a small and slender piece of stick were to be thrust into the burrow, the insect, he says, would immediately get upon it for the purpose of demanding the occasion of the intrusion: whence arose the proverb stultior grillo (more foolish than a cricket), applied to one who, upon light grounds, provokes his enemy, and falls into the snares which might have been laid to entrap him."*

The Rev. Mr. White, who attentively studied their habits and manners, at first made an attempt to dig them out with a spade, but without any great success; for either the bottom of the hole was inaccessible, from its terminating under a large stone, or else, in breaking up the ground, the poor creature was inadvertently squeezed to death. Out of one thus bruised, a great number of eggs was taken, which were long and narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very tough skin. More gentle means were then used, and these proved successful. A pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and bring out the inhabitant; and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it.

When the males meet, they sometimes fight very fiercely, as Mr. White found by some that he put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where he wished to have them settle. For though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their knowledge, yet the first * Entomologie, par R. A. E. 18mo., Paris, 1826, p. 168,

that got possession of the chinks seized on all the others that were obtruded upon him with his large 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 foreclaws to dig with like the mole-cricket. When taken into the hand, they never attempt to defend themselves, though armed with such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow about the mouths of their burrows they eat indiscriminately, 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. In hot weather, when they are most vigorous, they make the hills echo,

and in the more still hours of darkness, may be heard to a very considerable distance. "Not many summers ago," says Mr. White, "I endeavoured to transplant a colony of these insects to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in the sloping turf. The new inhabitants staid some time, and fed and sang; but they wandered away by degrees, and were heard at a greater distance every morning; so it appears that on this emergency they made use of their wings in attempting to return to the spot from which they were taken." The manner in which these insects lay their eggs is represented in the preceding figure; which is that of an insect nearly allied to the crickets, though of a different genus.

A more laborious task is performed by an insect by no means uncommon in Britain, the Burying-Beetle (Necrophorus vespillo), which may be easily recognised by its longish body, of a black colour, with two broad and irregularly-indented bands of yellowishbrown. A foreign naturalist, M. Gleditsch, gives a very interesting account of its industry. He had "often remarked that dead moles, when laid upon the ground, especially if upon loose earth, were almost sure to disappear in the course of two or three days, often of twelve hours. To ascertain the cause he placed a mole upon one of the beds in his garden. It had vanished by the third morning; and on digging where it had been laid, he found it buried to the depth of three inches, and under it four beetles, which seemed to have been the agents in this singular inhumation. Not perceiving anything particular in the mole, he buried it again; and on examining it at the end of six days, he found it swarming with maggots, apparently the issue of the beetles, which M. Gleditsch now naturally concluded had buried the carcase for the food of their future young.

*Nat. Hist. Selborne.

NUS
FILL

To determine these points more clearly, he put four of these insects into a glass vessel, half filled with earth and properly secured, and upon the surface of the earth two frogs. In less than twelve hours one of the frogs was interred by two of the beetles; the other two ran about the whole day, as if busied in measuring the dimensions of the remaining corpse, which on the third day was also found buried. He then introduced a dead linnet. A pair of the beetles were soon engaged upon the bird. They began their operations by pushing out the earth from under the body, so as to form a cavity for its reception; and it was curious to see the efforts which the beetles made by dragging at the feathers of the bird from below, to pull it into its grave. The male, having driven the female away, continued the work alone for five hours. He lifted up the bird, changed its place, turned it and arranged it in the grave, and from time to time came out of the hole, mounted upon it, and trod it under foot, and then retired below, and pulled it down. At length, apparently wearied with this uninterrupted labour, it came forth, and leaned its head upon the earth beside the bird without the smallest motion, as if to rest itself, for a full hour, when it again crept under the earth. The next day, in the morning, the bird was an inch and a half under ground, and the trench remained open the whole day, the corpse seeming as if laid out upon a bier surrounded with a rampart of mould. In the evening it had sunk half an inch lower, and in another day the work was completed, and the bird covered. M. Gleditsch continued to add other small dead animals, which were all sooner or later buried; and the result of his experiment was, that in fifty days four beetles had interred, in the very small space of earth allotted to them, twelve carcasses: viz., four frogs, three small birds, two fishes, one mole, and two grasshop