A WOOD-BORING CRICKET. 319 



at the tarsus, or foot as it is popularly called, he Mali see that 

 it is very curiously constructed. The first joint is very long, 

 and in the hind pair of legs is furnished on either side with a 

 triangular flattened plate. Then come two short joints, each 

 of them with a long, flat projection on either side ; and then 

 comes the fourth, or last joint, which is long and rather powerful. 

 Besides these appendages, there are six little plates of similar 

 form on the end of the tibia, three on either side. 



To my mind the most extraordinary of the Crickets is a spe- 

 cies called Cylindrodes Campbellii, which inhabits Australia. 

 At a hasty glance it is almost impossible to believe that it 

 belongs to the Crickets at all, looking, as it does, wonderfully 

 like the larva of some wood -boring insect. It is about as thick 

 as an ordinary artist's pencil, and, as its generic name implies, 

 almost as cylindrical as the pencil. 



It has but rudiments of wings, and the two hinder pairs of 

 legs are very small, and pressed closely against the body. The 

 thorax is also cylindrical and shining, and the two front legs, 

 which are very much like those of our common Mole Cricket, 

 are very flat, and, like the other legs, pressed closely against 

 the sides, which are sculptured into cavities. Thus, there is 

 scarcely any break in the outline of the body when the insect 

 presses all its legs against its sides. Its structure shows that 

 the creature must be one of the borers, and accordingly it 

 is found to inhabit timber, — a very strange residence for one 

 of the Gryllidae. 



Many of the insects which have been recently described have 

 been of such large dimensions that the figures were necessarily 

 diminished, so as to get them within the limits of our pages. 

 Just the contrary is the case with the Ehvpi^teryx marginatus, 

 which is drawn of exactly double the linear dimensions of the 

 real insect. 



The thorax of this insect is shining black, but it has in the 

 middle two oval yellow marks, and it is surrounded with a 

 narrow yellow band, whence comes its specific name of margi- 

 natus. These markings are not quite the same in all specimens, 

 the yellow spots varying in size and the band in thickness. 

 Sometimes the two spots are merged into one, but in all speci- 



