As closely as the difficulties of the operation will allow, I have estimated the eggs of a single female, upon passing the earth through a sieve, at five or six hundred.

Such a family will certainly undergo an energetic pruning before very long.
The egg of the Cricket is a curiosity, a tiny mechanical marvel.

After hatching it appears as a sheath of opaque white, open at the summit, where there is a round and very regular aperture, to the edge of which adheres a little valve like a skull-cap which forms the lid.

Instead of breaking at random under the thrusts or the cuts of the new-formed larva, it opens of itself along a line of least resistance which occurs expressly for the purpose.

The curious process of the actual hatching should be observed.
A fortnight after the egg is laid two large eye-marks, round and of a reddish black, are seen to darken the forward extremity of the egg.
Next, a little above these two points, and right at the end of the cylinder, a tiny circular capsule or swelling is seen.