SUBFAMILY I. GRYLLOTALPINJE. 649 



preference is shown by the cricket for any particular plant, its 

 zig-zag burrows being found in different parts of the area irre- 

 spective of the kinds of plants growing there. The insects have 

 been numerous enough for the nursery to detail several men at 

 certain periods to hunt them out and destroy as many as possible 

 every few days." 



Morse (1919, 18) records three specimens as found in a local 

 collection at Nautucket, Mass., where it was doubtless introduced 

 by importations of European plants. Burr (1897, G7) states that 

 in England: ''It lives in holes in damp places, potato fields, and 

 also in sandy places. The burrow is a long winding passage at 

 the end of which is a chamber in which the female lays about one 

 hundred dirty yellow eggs. It feeds on roots, etc., and animal 

 food if it can get it. The stridulation of this mole cricket has 

 been likened (by Gilbert White) to the churr of the nightjar, 

 but 'more inward' as the insect churrs in its burrow. It is to be 

 heard about dusk on warm spring evenings- In France they are 

 very numerous, and do damage by eating the roots of grass, etc., 

 but may be killed by pouring boiling water mixed with a little 

 oil into their holes; they then come up to die. They may be kept 

 in cages and fed on potatoes, turnips, meat, etc., but individuals 

 should be kept separately or they will fight and mutilate each 

 other. It takes about two years for this mole cricket to pass 

 through its transformations; the larvae, and perhaps the adult 

 insects, hibernate." 



Gilbert White says of this mole cricket: "When it flies it 

 moves cur so undoso, rising and falling in waves or curves like 

 woodpeckers. In different parts of England people call them 

 fern-crickets, churr-w^orins 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 they ruminate or 

 chew the cud like many quadrupeds." 



The majority of the European records of this insect have 

 been made under the name of ClnjllotaliHi cnlyaris Latr., a 

 synonym; Burr (1897, G7) first restoring the older name of 

 Linnaeus. 



II. SCAPTERISCUS Scudder, 18G8c, 385. (Gr., "a little digger.") 

 Medium sized burrowing crickets resembling closely the spe- 

 cies of Gyllotalpa in general appearance but easily distinguished 

 by having only two dactyls on each of the expanded fore tibiae. 



