scence which is formed expressly upon the beak of
the unborn bird; the egg of the Cricket, of a far superior structure,
opens like an ivory casket. The pressure of the inmate's head is
sufficient to work the hinge.

The moment he is deprived of his white tunic, the young Cricket, pale
all over, almost white, begins to struggle against the overlying soil.
He strikes it with his mandibles; he sweeps it aside, kicking it
backwards and downwards; and being of a powdery quality, which offers no
particular resistance, he soon arrives at the surface, and henceforth
knows the joys of the sun, and the perils of intercourse with the
living; a tiny, feeble creature, little larger than a flea. His colour
deepens. In twenty-four hours he assumes a splendid ebony black which
rivals that of the adult insect. Of his original pallor he retains only
a white girdle which encircles the thorax and reminds one of the
leading-string of an infant.

Very much on the alert, he sounds his surroundings with his long
vibrating antennae; he toddles and leaps along with a vigour which his
future obesity will no longer permit.

This is the age of stomach troubles. What are we to give him to eat? I
do not know. I offer him adult diet--the tender leaves of a lettuce. He
disdains to bite it; or perhaps his bites escape me, so tiny would they
be.

In a few days, what with my ten households, I see myself loaded with
family cares. What shall I do with my five or six thousand Crickets, an
attractive flock, to be sure, but one I cannot bring up in my ignorance
of the treatment required? I will give you liberty, gentle creatures! I
will confide you to the sovereign nurse and schoolmistress, Nature!

It is done. Here and there about my orchard, in the most favourable
localities, I loose my legions. What a concert I shall have before my
door next year if all goes well! But no! There will probably be silence,
for the terrible extermination will follow which corresponds with the
fertility of the mother. A few couples only may survive: that is the
most we can hope.

The first to come to the living feast and the most eager at the
slaughter are the little grey lizard and the ant. I am afraid this
latter, hateful filibuster that it is, will not leave me a single
Cricket in my garden. It falls upon the tiny Crickets, eviscerates them,
and devours them with frantic greed.

Satanic creature! And to think that we place it in the front rank of
the insect world! Th