MOLE CRICKET. 245 



insects was practically impossible, no matter how carefully the 

 habitation was prepared for them. He tried the experiment 

 of boring a number of deep holes in a sloping bank in his 

 garden, and putting into them a number of Field Crickets 

 which he took from their accustomed haunts outside the village. 

 For a time he thought that he had succeeded in his wish, as 

 the insects fed and sang, but they deserted their new habita- 

 tion by degrees, and at last wholly abandoned it. 



Another species of British Cricket is the Wood CracKET 

 {Acheta sylvestris). This is much smaller than the preceding 

 insect, the head and body not being quite half an inch in 

 length, excluding the antennae and aj^pendages of the abdomen. 

 It may be known by the structure of the elytra, which in the 

 male do not reach to the end of the body, and in the female 

 are only one-third as long as the abdomen. The m^flle is darker 

 and more mottled than the female. This is a very rare insect. 

 Its home is in the New Forest, where it has been found near 

 Lyndhurst, under dried leaves in a gravel-pit. 



On Plate VII. Fig. 5, is shown the odd-looking Mole 



Cricket [Gryllotalpa vulgaris), one of the largest insects 

 inhabiting England, not only being larger than most of our 

 insects, but stouter and more muscular. The name of Mole 

 Cricket is a very appropriate one, for the insect is not only 

 a Cricket, but is shaped wonderfully like the mole, and has 

 many of the habits of that animal, as we shall presently see. 

 There is but one genus and one species of Mole Cricket in- 

 habiting England, and there is no possibility of mistaking the 

 insect even in the earlier stages of existence. The tibige of 

 the fore-legs are developed into a stout, broad, flat, digging 

 apparatus, armed with sharp and strong claws, the whole limb 

 being almost exactly like that of the mole. Two views of this 

 extraordinary apparatus are given in Woodcut XXV., the upper 

 surface being drawn at Fig. 9, and the under surface at Fig. b. 

 The latter figure shows how the small feet and claws are tucked 

 away under the broad, palmated tibia, so as not to be injured 

 while the insect is employed in digging. Other portions of 

 the anatomy of the insect are given in the same illustration, 

 Fig i representing the labium and j the maxilla with its palpus, 



