296 THE INSECT WORLD. 



The Mole Crickets are distinguished from all other insects by 

 the structure of their fore-legs, which are wide and indented, in 

 such a manner as to resemble a hand, analogous to that of the 

 mole. This hand betrays its habits much better than our hands 

 betray ours. One need not be much of a fortune-teller to read on 

 it its digging habits. They make use of their hands, indeed, as 

 spades, with which they hollow out subterranean galleries, and 

 accumulate at the side of the entrance-hole the rubbish thus 

 drawn out. Their French name comes from the old French word 

 courtille, which means garden. It reminds one that these are 

 the favourite haunts of these destructive insects. 



If the Mole Crickets, or Courtilieres, have spades to their front 

 legs, their hind-legs are very little developed, so that it would 

 be perfectly impossible for them to jump, particularly as their 

 large abdomen would hinder their so doing. The wings are broad, 

 and fold back in the form of a fan ; they make little use of 

 them, and it is only at night-fall that the mole cricket is seen 

 to disport himself, describing curves of not much height in the 

 air. It is found principally in cultivated land, kitchen gardens, 

 nursery gardens, wheat fields, &c., where it scoops out for 

 itself an oval cavity communicating with the surface by a ver- 

 tical hole (Fig. 303). On this hole abut numerous horizontal 

 galleries, more or less inclined, which permit the insect to gain its 

 retreat by a great many roads when pursued. 



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 burro wings. Lands infested by the 

 mole cricket are recognisable by the colour of the vegetation, 

 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. To destroy them they pour water or other liquids 

 into their nests, or else they bury, at different distances, vessels 

 filled with water, in which they drown themselves. From the 

 month of April the males betake themselves to the entrance of 

 their burrows and make their cry of appeal. Their notes are slow, 

 vibrating, and monotonous, and repeated for a long time without 



