SCIENTIFIC SURVEY. 



195 



of the hatching belong to the imago state. Future observation 

 must show whether this be generally the case in this suborder. 

 Various Ichneumons feed on the eggs. 



Fhasmidae, Walking sticks. Our New England Diaphomera 

 femoraia is four inches long ; linear, wings minute, legs very long 

 and linear, and is found in trees, rose bushes, &c. It is very slug- 

 gish and not easily distinguished from the twigs it may be resting 

 upon. The eggs of this group are bean-shaped with scattered dots. 



Gryllodea. Crickets are known by their dark colors, depressed 

 oblong form, and long anal stylets, and by their long antennae. 

 The female has an ovipositor nearly as long as her body. They are 

 ground insects and fast runners. The male chirrups to attract the 

 other sex ; the apparatus being a specialization of the membrane 

 and nervures at the base of the wings, so that the rubbing of the 

 wings one upon the other produces a rasping-like noise. The eggs 

 are laid in cases, and the insects come ty maturity in the faH. Our 

 common black species is the Gryllus neglecius. 



Gilbert White says of the English cricket: " 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 upon any that were obtruded 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. Of such herbs as grow before the mouth of their burrow 

 they eat indiscriminately ; and on a little platform which they make 

 just by, they drop their dung ; and never, in the daytime, stir 

 more than two or three inches from home." 



The mole cricket, Gryllotalpa, live in wet, swampy soil, by ponds 

 and streams, where they raise ridges, as they make their subterra»- 

 ean galleries in search of insects. Their fore legs are adapted 

 like those of the mole for digging, and are stout and short, much 

 flattened, and armed with solid, tooth-like projections. Their eggs 

 are in a tough sack, containing two to four hundred, it is stated. 



" As mole crickets often infest gardens by the sides of canals, 

 they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising up ridges in 

 their subterraneous progress, and rendering the walks unsightly. 

 If they take to the kitchen quarters, they occasion great damage 



