150 ORTHOPTERA. 



finger-like projections on the shin. The mole-cricket of Eu- 

 rope lays from two to three hundred eggs, and the young 

 do not come to maturity till the third year ; circumstances 

 both contributing greatly to increase the ravages of these 

 insects. It is observed, that, in proportion as cultivation is 

 extended, destructive insects multiply, and their depredations 

 become more serious. We may, therefore, in process of 

 time, find mole-crickets in this country quite as much a pest 

 as they are in Europe, although their depredations have 

 hitherto been limited to so small an extent as not to have 

 attracted much notice. Should it hereafter become necessary 

 to employ means for checking them, poisoning might be 

 tried, such as placing, in the \icinity of their burrows, grated 

 carrots or potatoes mixed with arsenic. It is well known 

 that swine will eat almost all kinds of insects, and that they 

 are very sagacious in rooting them out of the ground. They 

 might, therefore, be employed with advantage to destroy 

 these and other noxious insects, if other means should fail. 



We have no house-crickets in America ; 3 our species in- 

 habit gardens and fields, and enter our houses only by acci- 

 dent. Crickets are, in great measure, nocturnal and solitary 

 insects, concealing themselves by day, and coming from their 

 retreats to seek their food and their mates by night. There 

 are some species, however, which differ greatly from the 

 others in their social habits. These are not unfrequently 

 seen during the daytime in great numbers in paths, and by 

 the roadside ; but the other kinds rarely expose themselves 

 to the light of day, and their music is heard only at night. 

 With crickets, as with grasshoppers, locusts, and harvest- 

 flies, the males only are musical ; for the females are not 

 provided with the instruments from which the sounds emitted 



[ This language may apply to the particular district in which Dr. Harris made 

 hi observation*, but it would be gratuitous to say that we have no house-crickets 

 in America, for nothing is better known to the country-people of Maryland than 

 the "cricket on the hearth," and in some sections of the West they are also well 

 known to inhabit the chimney-places and first-floor apartments of the dwellings. 



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