196 BOARD OF AGRICULTURK 



among the plants and roots, by destroying whole beds of cabbages, 

 young legumes and flowers. When dug out, they seem very slow 

 and helpless, and make no use of their wings by day ; but at night 

 they come abroad and make long excursions, as I have been con- 

 vinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in improbable pk^ces. 

 In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at the close of 

 the day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring 

 note, continued for a long time without interruption, and not un- 

 like the chattering of the fern owl or goat-sucker, but more inward. 



" About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was once 

 an eye-witness ; for a gardener at a house where I was on a visit, 

 happening to be mowing on the sixth of that month, by the side of 

 a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of tuft, 

 and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy. There 

 were many cavern and winding passages leading to a kind of 

 chamber, neatly smoothe(t and rounded, and about the size of a 

 moderate snuflf box. Within this secret nursery were deposited 

 nearly an hundred eggs, of a dirty 3' ellow color, and enveloped in 

 a tough skin ; but too lately excluded to contain any rudiments of 

 young, being full of a viscid substance. The eggs lay but shallow, 

 and within the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh 

 moved mould, like that which is raised by ants. 



"When mole-crickets fly, they move cursu undoso, rising and 

 falling in curves." White. 



Nothing is known about our New England species, of which we 

 have more than in Enrope. 



(Ecantlms niveus, is very flat and broad behind, with long legs, 

 and white, colored with yellow ; the female is narrower and tinged 

 with green. They live on grape vines, and are easily detected by 

 their loud shrilling. They lay their eggs in the stems of plants, 

 by perforating the stalks with their ovipositor, and they have been 

 fftundthus perforating the branches of peach trees ; they also feed 

 upon the tobacco leaves. It has not yet been observed in Maine. 



Locuslariae, are large, generally broad-winged grasshoppers, 

 with long, slender legs. The Katydid belongs to this family. It 

 has not yet been found in Maine. But its allies which live in 

 bushes and on trees, such as the large Phmieroptera auguslifolia, 

 and which make a loud, shrilling noise, are common. 



Ceuthophilus maculatus, a wingless species, of a dark brown color, 

 is common under stones ; in other parts of the country they are 



