266 Insect Architecture. 



may call them so) is admirably adapted for these operations, 

 being both very strong, and moved by a peculiar apparatus 

 of muscles. The breast is formed of a thick, hard, horny 

 substance, which is further strengthened within by a double 

 framework of strong gristle, in front of the extremities of 

 which the shoulder-blades of the arms are firmly jointed : 

 a structure evidently intended to prevent the breast from 

 being injured by the powerful action of the muscles of the 

 arms in digging. The arms themselves are strong and 

 broad, and the hand is furnished with four large sharp 

 claws, pointed somewhat obliquely outwards, this being the 

 direction in which it digs, throwing the earth on each side 

 of its course. So strongly indeed does it throw out its arms, 

 that we find it can thus easily support its own weight when 



Nest of the Mole-Cricket. 



held between the finger and thumb, as we have tried upon 

 half-a-dozen of the living insects now in our possession. 



The nest which the female constructs for her eggs, in the 

 beginning of May, is well worthy of attention. The Rev. 

 Mr. White, of Selborne, tells us that a gardener, at a house 

 where he was on a visit, while mowing grass by the side of 

 a canal, chanced to strike his scythe too deep, and pared off 

 a large piece of turf, laying open to view an interesting scene 

 of domestic economy. There was a pretty chamber dug in 

 the clay, of the form and about the dimensions it would have 

 had if moulded by an egg, the walls being neatly smoothed 

 and polished. In this little cell were deposited about a 

 hundred eggs, of the size and form of caraway comfits, and 

 of a dull tarnished white colour. The eggs were not very 



