MOLE-CRICKET. 



213 



ties of which the shoulder-blades of the arms are firmly 

 jointed: a structure evidently intended to prevent the 

 breast from being injured by the powerful action of the 

 muscles of the arms in digging. The arms themselves are 

 strong and broad, and the hand is furnished with four large 

 sharp claws, pointed somewhat obliquely outwards, this 

 being the direction in which it digs, throwing the earth on 

 each side of its course. So strongly indeed does it throw 

 out its arms, that we find it can thus easily support its own 

 weight when held between the finger and thumb, as we 

 have tried upon half-a-dozen of the living insects now in 

 our possession. 



The nest which the female constructs for her eggs, in the 

 beginning of May, is well worthy of attention. The Rev. 



pp^^ffc^,---- 



Nest ot the Mole-Cricket. 



Mr. AVhite, of Selborne, tells us that a gardener, at a house 

 where he was on a visit, while mowing grass by the side of 

 a canal, chanced to strike his scythe too deep, and pared off 

 a large piece of turf, laying open to view an interesting 

 scene of domestic economy. There was a prett}^ chamber 

 dug in the clay, of the form and about the dimensions it 

 would have had if moulded by an egg, the w^alls being 

 neatly smoothed and polished. In this little cell were 

 deposited about a hundred eggs, of the size and form of 

 caraway comfits, and of a dull tarnished white colour. The 

 eggs were not ver}'- deep, but just under a little heap of 

 fresh mould, and within the influence of the sun's heat.* 

 The dull tarnished white colour, towever, scarcely agrees 



* Natural History of Sell:)orne, ii. 82. 



