240 INSECTS AT HOME. 



In these insects the female does not possess any ovipositor, 

 and the only method of determining the sex without dissection 

 is by examining- the structure of the elytra, the males possessing 

 the notched nervure, and the females being without it. The 

 sound produced by the Mole Cricket is neitlier so loud nor so 

 shrill as that of the domestic Cricket, but yet it has been pro- 

 duced artificially by rubbing together the elytra of a newly 

 killed insect. The males, by the way, seem to be rarer than 

 the females. 



In consequence of this sound, it is called by several popular 

 names, varying according to the district in which it is foimd. 

 In some places, for example, it is called the Ciiurr-worm, or 

 Jark-avoem, or Eve-Chure, wliile in others it is named the 

 Croaker. Its hard, shelly limbs and general conformation 

 have also gained for it the name of Earth Crab. The colour 

 of this insdct is brown above, with a peculiarly velvety surface, 

 and the elytra are much paler, with brown nervures. 



The Mole Cricket is, as its structure shows, one of the bur- 

 rowers, and it carries out, though to a greater extent, many ot 

 the habits of the Field Cricket, and prefers similar ground, so 

 that it is necessarily a local insect. Loose sandy places are the 

 best spots wherein to tuiti the Mole Cricket, which can generally 

 be captured by the simple device of pushing a flexible twig or 

 long grass-stem into its burrow, and then digging round tlie 

 twig. There is a village called Besselsleigh, a few miles from 

 Oxford, where the Mole Cricket is tolerably plentiful, and from 

 that place Dr. Kidd obtained the specimens which he employed 

 when writing his admirable monograph on the insect. The 

 soil tliere is loose dry sand, heaped in many places in hillocks 

 and partly overgrown with grass, and, as it is dry, the sand 

 falls back into the holes made by the spade. Yet, Gilbert 

 White, in his ' Selborne,' states that the Mole Cricket haunts 

 most moist meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds and 

 banks of streams, performing all its functions in a swampy, 

 wet soil. 



The normal food of the Mole Cricket is of a vegetable cha- 

 racter, and in some places where the insects are common, they 

 do much damage to the root-crops, and even destroy garden 

 flowers, cabbages, and grass, by devouring their roots. The;y 

 will, however, eat raw meat, and on occasions become cannibals. 



