ORTHOPTERA. 121 



crickets avoid the light of day, and are active chiefly during the 

 night. They live on the tender roots of plants, and in Europe, 

 where they infest moist gardens and meadows, they often do great 

 injury by burrowing under the turf, and cutting off the roots of 

 the grass, and by undermining and destroying, in this way, some- 

 times whole beds of cabbages, beans, and flowers. In the West 

 Indies, extensive ravages have been committed in the plantations 

 of the sugar-cane, by another species, Gryllotalpa didactyla, which 

 has only two finger-like projections on the shin. The mole- 

 cricket of Europe lays from two to three hundred eggs, and the 

 young do not come to maturity till the third year ; circumstances 

 both contributing greatly to increase the ravages of these insects. 

 It is observed, that, in proportion as cultivation is extended, 

 destructive insects multiply, and their depredations become more 

 serious. We may, therefore, in process of time, find mole- 

 crickets in this country quite as much a pest as they are in Eu- 

 rope, although their depredations have hitherto been limited to so 

 small an extent as not to have attracted much notice. Should 

 it hereafter become necessary to ■ employ means for checking 

 them, poisoning might be tried, such as placing, in the vicinity of 

 their burrows, grated carrots or potatoes mixed with arsenic. It 

 is well known that swine will eat almost all kinds of insects, and 

 that they are very sagacious in rooting them out of the ground. 

 They might, therefore, be employed with advantage to destroy 

 these and other noxious insects, if other means should fail. 



We have no house-crickets in America ; our species inhabit 

 gardens and fields, and enter our houses only by accident. 

 Crickets are, in great measure, nocturnal and solitary insects, 

 concealing themselves by day, and coming from their retreats to 

 seek their food and their mates by night. There are some spe- 

 cies, however, which differ greatly from the others in their social 

 habits. These are not unfrequently seen during the daytime in 

 great numbers in paths, and by the road-side ; but the other kinds 

 rarely expose themselves to the light of day, and their music is 

 heard only at night. With crickets, as with grasshoppers, lo- 

 custs, and harvest-flies, the males only are musical ; for the fe- 

 males are not provided with the instruments from which the sounds 

 emitted by these different insects are produced. In the male 



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