132 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



have been committed in the plantations of the sugar-cane, by 

 another species, GryUotalpa didactj/la, 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 con- 

 tributing greatly to increase the ravages of these insects. It 

 is observed, that, in proportion as cultivation is extended, de- 

 structive 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 

 Europe, 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 

 species, 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, locusts, and harvest-flies, the males only are 

 musical ; for the females are not provided with the instruments 

 from which the sounds emitted by these different insects are 

 produced. In the male cricket these make a part of the wing- 

 covers, the horizontal and overlapping portion of which, near 

 the thorax, is convex, and marked with large, strong, and 

 irregularly curved veins. When the cricket shrills (we cannot 

 say sings, for he has no vocal organs), he raises the wing-covers 



