258 MOLE-CRICKETS. 



LETTEE XC. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE. 



How diversified are the modes of life, not only of incon- 

 gruous, but even of congenerous animals! and yet their 

 specific distinctions are not more various than their propen- 

 sities. 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 

 functions 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 proceeds, 

 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 con- 

 vinced 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, continued 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 mowing, on the 6th of that month, 

 by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a 



* Gryllotalpa vulgaris, in some places where abundant, does great damage 

 to newly sown seed, particularly peas, beans, &c. W. J. 



