258 FAMILY VII.— GRYLLID/E. 



These fossorial crickets, like the members of the follow 

 ing genus, burrow in the ground, but especially the former 

 are preeminetly burrowers. Like the true mole they are 

 w-ell equipped for such a life. Unity of habits will produce 

 similar modifications in the organs specially needed, and the 

 front tibi« of the mole-crickets are very similar to the 

 •broadened hand-shaped front feet of the mole, or of the 

 pocket-gopher, because they are used for the same purpose. 

 Mole-crickets live in rather damp places, near lakes, ponds 

 or rivers, where the\' form long channels with raised ridges, 

 which resemble a miniature mole-hill. Some of their bur- 

 rows are from six to eight inches below the surface, and in 

 making them the roots of plants above are greatly injured. 

 Mole-crickets, though they feed upon tender roots of plants, 

 are by no means strictly vegetarians, but devour greedily 

 an\^ insect they are able to catch. In fact most of the 

 members of Crickets and Long-horned Grasshopers are 

 cannibals whenever an opportunity should offer, and some 

 eat more animal than vegetable matter. In Europe the 

 mole-cricket becomes sometimes a ver^- serious pest, especially 

 among young plants of trees in forest nurseries. In the 

 West Indies, and in Java, other species are very destructive 

 to the sugar-cane. 



Mole-crickets, like true moles, are by no means socia 

 beings, and except at the love season only one 

 adult insect is found in each burrow. The mother de 

 posits from 200 to 300 eggs in a round cavity deeper in 

 the ground. Wherever mole-crickets occur they are not 

 very difficult to capture, as they can be located in their 

 burrows by their songs. Captive specimens, if placed on 

 the ground, will at once begin to dig; if put on a piece of 

 paper, or on a handkerchief, they invariably go through all 

 the motions of digging. Both species of mole-crickets are 

 sometimes attracted by lights. 



