120 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



tapering ; feet with not more than three joints ; two tapering, 

 downy bristles at the end of the body, between which, in most of 

 the females, is a long spear-pointed piercer. 



2. Grasshoppers (Gryllid^:) ; with the wing-covers sloping 

 downwards at the sides of the body, or roofed, and not bordered ; 

 antennae long and tapering ; feet with four joints ; end of the 

 body, in the females, with a projecting sword or sabre-shaped 

 piercer. 



3. Locusts (Locustad^:) ; with the w 7 ing-covers roofed, and 

 not bordered ; antennae rather short, and in general not tapering at 

 the end : feet with only three joints ; female without a projecting 

 piercer. 



1. Crickets. (Jlcheladce.) 



There may sometimes be seen in moist and soft ground, par- 

 ticularly around ponds, little ridges or hills of loose fresh earth, 

 smaller than those which are formed by moles. They cover little 

 burrows, that usually terminate beneath a stone or clod of turf. 

 These burrows are made and inhabited by mole-crickets, which 

 are among the most extraordinary of the cricket kind. The 

 common mole-cricket of this country is, when fully grown, about 

 one inch and a quarter in length, of a light bay or fawn color, and 

 covered with a very short and velvet-like down. The wing- 

 covers are not half the length of the abdomen, and the wings are 

 also short, their tips, when folded, extending only about one eighth 

 of an inch beyond the wing-covers. The fore-legs are admirably 

 adapted for digging, being very short, broad, and strong ; and the 

 shanks, which are excessively broad, flat, and three-sided, have 

 the lower side divided by deep notches into four finger-like pro- 

 jections, that give to this part very much the appearance and the 

 power of the hand of a mole. From this similarity in structure, 

 and from its burrowing habits, this insect receives its scientific 

 name of Gryllotalpa, derived from Gryllus, the ancient name of 

 the cricket, and Talpa, a mole ; and our common species has the 

 additional name of brevipennis,* or short-winged, to distinguish it 

 from the European species, which has much longer wings. Mole- 



• Serville. " Orthopteres," p. 308. 



