Transactions of the Royal Society. 331 



tity of garden mould, without the possibility of having met with 

 any other nourishment than such as that portion of mould might 

 he supposed to contain.' 



In the external characters of the perfect gryllotalpa, we see a 

 perfect accommodation in form and structure to the circumstances 

 in which the individual is naturally placed. Destined, like the 

 common mole, to live beneath the surface of the earth, and to ex- 

 cavate a passage for itself through the soil which it inhabits, the 

 gryllotalpa is furnished, like the mole, with limbs particularly 

 calculated for burrowing ; with a skin which effectually prevents 

 the adhesion of the moist earth through which it moves ; and with 

 exactly that form and structure of body, by which it is enabled 

 to penetrate the opposing medium with the greatest ease. At 

 the same time, in order to prevent the necessity of its excavating 

 a track so wide as to admit of the body being turned round in 

 case of a desire to retreat, it is endued with the power of moving 

 as easily in a retrograde as in a progressive direction ; and, ap- 

 parently to perform the office of antenna?, which warn the insect 

 of approaching danger in its progressive motions, it has two ap- 

 pendages, which might not improperly be called caudal antennae, 

 evidently calculated to serve a similar purpose during its retro- 

 grade motions ; particularly as they are furnished with very large 

 nerves. The indifference with which the insect is disposed to 

 move in either direction is manifested by the following experi- 

 ment : if you touch it towards the head, it retreats ; if towards 

 the other extremity of the body, it advances. 



The general colour of the animal is such as indirectly to 

 serve as a protection to it, being nearly of the same hue as the 

 vegetable mould in which it lives ; so that it is not very readily 

 distinguished upon being first turned up to view ; and its safety 

 seems to be still farther insured by the appearance of death, 

 which, in common with many other insects, it assumes when sud- 

 denly disturbed. This stratagem, for so it may be called, appears 

 to be most decidedly practised by the animal while in captivity ; 

 and if thrown at random out of the vessel in which it has been 

 confined, however unnatural the posture may be into which it has 

 been thrown, it remains as it were in a state of catalepsy during 

 half a minute or more ; the first indication which it gives of re- 

 covery from this stupor, invariably consists in a motion of the 

 extremity of the antenna. 



The general colour of the insect is a dusky brown, passing 

 either into a reddish brown, or into an ochery yellow ; those parts 

 being of the darkest colour which are most exposed to view when 

 the animal is moving in the open air. Every part of the body 

 is to a greater or less degree covered by a kind of down, which 

 seems to be the efficient cause of its capability of repelling mois- 

 ture ; which capability is so remarkable, that when the insect is 



