ORTHOPTERA. 117 



Gryllotalpa, is only one English species, the curious 

 Mole Cricket. 



The House Cricket is an active, flattened, long-horned 

 insect, with rather sprawling legs, and the appearance of 

 several tails. These tails consist of, first, the abdominal 

 appendages usual in the order, and which in this are a 

 pair of long tapering bristles ; secondly, of the tips of 

 the wings, which being larger than the wing-cases, extend 

 beyond them, when folded, in two long slender points ; 

 and thirdly, in the female, of a long ovipositor. 



The wing-cases are of a peculiar form in the crickets, 

 being flat along the back and suddenly depressed at the 

 sides for their whole length, thus covering the sides as 

 effectually as the shelving tegmina of the other 

 families. 



The bodies of the Crickets are flatter or more depressed 

 than those of the Grasshoppers and Locusts ; the tarsi 

 are three-jointed, slender, and spined, so being fitted for 

 running on the ground. In the genus Acheta the 

 ovipositor of the female is long, slender, and projecting; 

 in the Mole Cricket it is withdrawn from sight. 



The mole cricket (fig. 42, and fig. U, p. 37) differs 

 Fig. 42. 



Outline of Mole Cricket. 



from the other Crickets most conspicuously in the 

 curious hand-like front legs (described p. 37) ; which 



