from the burning atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and shew a great propensity for liquids, being found frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, or the. like. Whatever is moist they affect; and, therefore, often gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are hung to the fire; they are the housewife's barometer, foretelling her when it will rain; and are prognostics sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck; of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant_companions of her solitary hours, they naturally become the objects of her superstition.* These crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious; for they will eat the_scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread; and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have observed them to fly, when it became dusk, out of the windows, and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts for the sudden manner in which they often leave their haunts, as it does for the method by which they come to houses where they were not known before. It is remarkable, that many sorts of insects seem never to use their wings but when they have a mind to shift their quarters and settle new colonies. When in the air, they move volatu undoso, in waves, or curves, like woodpeckers, opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or sinking.

When they increase to a great degree, as they did once in the house where I am now writing, they become noisome pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into people's faces; but may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowder discharged into their crevices and crannies. In families, at such times, they are, like Pharaoh's plague of frogs, " in their bed-chambers, and upon their beds, and in their ovens, and in their kneadingtroughs." + Their shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Cats catch hearth-crickets, and, playing with them as they do with mice, devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, by phials half filled with beer, or any liquid, and set in their haunts; for, being always eager to drink, they will crowd in till the bottles are full.

* Sir William Jardine says, that, in Dumfriesshire, it is considered lucky to have crickets in a house; but if they disappear from one which they have long inhabited, it is looked upon as foreboding some calamity to the family.ED.

+ Exod. viii. 3.

LETTER XC.

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE.

How diversified are the modes of life, not only of incongruous, but even of congenerous animals! and yet their specific distinctions are not more various than their propensities. Thus, while the field-cricket delights in sunny, dry banks, and the house-cricket rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the gryllus gryllotalpa (the mole-cricket) haunts moist meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds, and banks of streams, performing all its functions in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks.*

As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering the walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters, they occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and flowers. When dug out, they seem very slow and helpless, and make no use of their wings by day; but at night they come abroad, and make long excursions, as I have been convinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in improbable places. In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without interruption, and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, but more inward.

*This is the gryllotalpa vulgaris of Latreille; the structure of its arms and fore-feet fit it in a peculiar manner for these operations, being of great strength, and moved by a set of muscles admirably fitted for the purpose of digging, giving vigour to these parts. The breast consists of a hard and thick horny substance, strengthened within by a double frame-work of tough gristle, in the front edge of which the shoulderblades are firmly articulated. This structure seems intended to prevent the breast from being injured by the powerful muscles of the arms during the operation of digging. The arms are powerfully formed, and of great breadth, in proportion to the size of the animal; the feet are shaped like two broad hands, and provided with four large broad-based and sharp claws, pointing somewhat obliquely outwards, like the hands of the mole, this being the direction in which the animal digs, throwing the earth on both sides as it advances. - Ep.

About the beginning of May, they lay their eggs, as I was once an eye-witness; for a gardener, at a house where I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy:

- ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram; Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt: penetralia.

Apparent

There were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within the secret nursery were deposited near an hundred eggs, of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin; but too lately excluded 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!

LETTER XCI.

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, May 7, 1779. It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject: new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive.

In the last week of last month, five of those most rare birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or loripes, and charadrius himantopus,* were shot upon the verge of Frinsham Pond,

*This is the long-legged plover of Bewick, and other British authors. -ED.

a large lake belonging to the Bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer Forest and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The pond-keeper says there were three brace in the flock; but that, after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain unmolested. One of these specimens I procured, and found the length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first sight, one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on to impose on the credulity of the beholder: they were legs in caricatura; and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen, we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and might, with propriety, be called the stilt-plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives them the apposite name of l'échasse. My specimen, when drawn, and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a half, and the legs four inches and a half: Hence we may safely assert, that these birds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the most long-legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of proportion to the himantopus; for a cock flamingo weighs, at an average, about four pounds avoirdupois; and his legs and thighs measure usually about twenty inches. But four pounds are fifteen times and a fraction more than four ounces and one quarter: and if four ounces and a quarter have eight inches of legs, four pounds must have one hundred and twenty inches and a fraction of legs, viz. somewhat more than ten feet,-such a monstrous proportion as the world never saw! If you should try the experiment in still larger birds, the disparity would still increase. It must be matter of great curiosity to see the stilt-plover move; to observe how it can wield such a length of lever with such feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnished with. At best, one should expect it to be but a bad walker: but what adds to the wonder is, that it has no back toe. Now, without that steady prop to support its steps, it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the true centre of gravity.

The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny; and, by an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious researches, either at home or abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr Pennant never met with it in

D

all Great Britain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist says, that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn; and a most accurate observer of nature has assured me, that he has found it on the banks of the streams in Andalusia.

Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain. From all these relations it plainly appears, that these long-legged plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely visit our island; and when they do, are wanderers and stragglers, and impelled to make so distant and northern an excursion, from motives or accidents, for which we are not able to account. One thing may fairly be deduced, that these birds come over to us from the Continent, since nobody can suppose that a species not noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkable make, can constantly breed unobserved in this kingdom.*

LETTER XCII.

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, April 21, 1780.

DEAR SIR,- The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it, that when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden: however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues still concealed.

As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life, and propensities; and perceive already, that, towards the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing-place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; for it goes to bed, in the longest days, at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning

* This bird is a widely diffused species, being common in Egypt, the shores of the Caspian Sea, the southern deserts of Independent Tartary, and Madras, in the East Indies. -ED.