30 BRITISH INSECTS 



adapted for burrowing. The short, broad tibia has 

 prong-like projections below, which serve as a kind of 

 rake, while two joints of the tarsus are furnished with 

 hard processes, which can be moved back and forth 

 over the tibial prongs, thus acting as shears for cutting 

 roots which may impede the insect's progress through 

 the soil The female has no projecting ovipositor, 

 but the number of evident abdominal segments in 

 this sex is only seven, compared with nine in the 

 male. Mole-crickets dwell in extensive subterranean 

 burrows which they construct, and are seldom seen 

 above ground. They usually frequent damp places, 

 near to water. Gilbert White, the Selborne naturalist, 

 gives a word-picture of this insect's home-life and 

 habits that would be hard to beat. " A gardener at a 

 house where 1 was on a visit," he writes, " happening 

 to be mowing, on the 6th of May, by the side of a 

 canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large 

 piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of 

 domestic economy. There were many caverns and 

 winding passages, leading to a kind of chamber, 

 neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of 

 an ordinary snuff-box. Within this secret nursery 

 was deposited nearly a hundred eggs of a dirty yellow 

 colour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately 

 extruded to contain any rudiments of young, being 

 full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, 

 and within the influence of the sun, just under a little 

 heap of fresh mould, like that which is raised by ants." 

 Like earwigs, mole-crickets watch over their eggs, 

 and are said to care for their young during the early 

 stages of their development. 



