IS IT A MISCHIEF-MAKER 9 277 



than the male, lays her eggs, which are, comparatively speak- 

 ing, of a tolerable size (Fig. 62, ), at some depth underground. 

 The young, when hatched, resemble their parents, except that 

 they are white, and possess merely the rudiments of wings. 



If the mole-cricket, in its subterranean progress, encounters 

 any roots, it cuts them with its mandibles, not to feed upon 

 them, but to get rid of an obstacle j hence the mischief of 

 which the farmer accuses it, though this slight amount of injury 

 is altogether outweighed by its services in destroying a swarm 

 of insects. 



Perhaps, therefore, we must not blame the farmer for the 

 hostility with which he pursues it, especially if we are to 

 accept as a true picture of its doings the sketch recently 

 drawn by a popular writer : 



" It is easy to understand that an insect which undermines 

 land in this way must cause great damage to cultivation (!). 

 Whether the crops serve it for food or not, they are not the 

 less destroyed by its underground burrowings. Lands infested 

 by the mole-cricket are recognisable by the colour of the vege- 

 tation, which is yellow and withered ; and the rubbish which 

 these miners heap up at the side of the openings leading to 

 their galleries, resembling mole-hills in miniature, betrays their 

 presence to the farmer." 



If, I say, this be a true picture, we cannot wonder at the 

 means employed by the farmer to clear his fields of such dan- 

 gerous tenants. The plan generally adopted is to dig, at 

 intervals, a number of little trenches, which are filled up with 

 cow-dung, well trodden down. The supposed root-eaters as- 



