344 TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 



short and wonderfully enlarged, and, as it were, fingered, enable 

 them to grub in the earth very effectually. They are the true 

 moles of the insect class, and they choose made soils, like those 

 of gardens and vineyards, for their dwelling places. They make 

 galleries, destroying everything which comes in their way, cutting 

 through roots and eating the fine undergroimd twigs as well as 

 the worms and the grubs which they come across during their 

 excavations. Some authors have asserted that the mole cricket 

 is truly carnivorous, but this is a mistake. They will eat worms 

 and insects which come in their way, but their nourishment is 

 principally of a vegetable character; and it can be readily 

 imagined that they are very destructive. Their excavations con- 

 sist of vertical shafts more or less deep, and of long horizontal 

 galleries which lead from them ; the insect is, in fact, a regular miner, 

 and the female lays its eggs in the remotest part of the mine. 



In the accompanying engraving a mole cricket is seen coming 

 out of its shaft, another is in a gallery, a male is flying, and the 

 immature insects are crawling over the soil. 



One tribe of the Orthoptcra still remains to be noticed, and 

 its members are the true locusts, and belong to the Acrididce. 



The Acrididcs have short and thick antennae, but they have 

 not the same kind of musical apparatus as the tribes already 

 described, nor ovipositors ; but if they have not this particular 

 musical apparatus they are none the less good musicians — that is 

 to say if the stridulous noise they make can be called music. 

 They produce it in this manner : there are very prominent ner- 

 vures on the elytra, and the thighs of the hind legs are furnished 

 with ridges on their internal surface ; the insect rubs the thigh 

 sharply against the elytra, and produces on this natural fiddle a 

 sharp vibrating sound. We may not admire it, but it is quite 

 certain that the lady crickets do, and doubtless they constitute a 

 very critical audience. The accompanying engraving exhibits the 

 metamorphosis of the locust {Acridium pcrcgrinum). 



The locusts deposit their eggs in the earth, and close them up 

 in a kind of tunnel, and the young ones are born without wings, 

 which become developed as they grow older. 



Some remarks on the metamorphoses of the OrtJioptcra will 

 be found in the chapter on the Crustacea. 



