MOLE-CRICKETS. 281 



yet their specific distinctions are not more various 

 than their propensities. Thus, while the field- cricket 

 delights in sunny, dry banks, and the house-cricket 

 rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth 

 or oven, the gryllus gryllotalpa (the mole-cricket *) 

 haunts moist meadows, and frequents the sides of 

 ponds, and banks of streams, performing all its func- 

 tions in a swampy, wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, 

 curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works 

 under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it pro- 

 ceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks. 



As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides 

 of canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, 

 raising up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and 

 rendering the walks unsightly. If they take to the 

 kitchen quarters, they ^occasion great damage among 

 the plants and roots, by destroying whole beds of 

 cabbages, young legumes, and flowers. When dug 

 out, they seem very slow and helpless, and make no 

 use of their wings by day ; but at night they come 

 abroad, and make long excursions, as I have been 

 convinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in 

 improbable places. In fine weather, about the middle 

 of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to 

 solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, con- 

 tinued for a long time without interruption, and not 

 unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, 

 but more inward. 



About the beginning of May, they lay their eggs, 

 as I was once an eye-witness ; for a gardener, at a 

 house where I was on a visit, happening to be mow- 

 ing, on the 6th of that month, by the side of a canal, 

 his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of 



* Gryllotalpa milgaris, in some places where abundant, does 

 great damage to newly sown seeds, particularly peas, beans, 

 &c. W. J. 



