kly bring out the inhabitant; and thus the humane inquirer may
gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. It is
remarkable, that though these insects are furnished with long legs
behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like grasshoppers; yet when driven
from their holes they show no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless
manner, so as easily to be taken; and again, though provided with a
curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them when there seems to
be the greatest occasion. The males only make that shrilling noise,
perhaps, out of rivalry and emulation, as is the case with many animals
which exert some sprightly note during their breeding-time. It is raised
by a brisk friction of one wing against the other. They are solitary
beings, living singly male and female, each as it may happen; but there
must be a time when the sexes have some intercourse, and then the wings
may be useful perhaps during the hours of night. When the males meet
they will fight fiercely, as I found by some which I put into the
crevices of a dry stone wall, where I should have been glad to have made
them settle. For though they seemed distressed by being taken out of
their knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks would
seize on any other that were intruded upon them with a vast 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 fore-claws to dig, like the mole-cricket. When taken in hand I
could not but wonder that they never offered to defend themselves, though
armed with such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before the
mouths of their burrows they eat indiscriminately, and on a little
platform which they make just by, they drop their dung; 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; and in hot weather,
when they are most vigorous, they make the hills echo, and in the stiller
hours of darkness may be heard to a considerable distance. In the
beginning of the season their notes are more faint and inward; but become
louder as the summer advances, and so die away again by degrees.

Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweetness and
melody, nor do harsh sounds always displease. We are more apt to