218 MOLE CRICKETS. 



a swampy, wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, 

 curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and 

 works under ground like the mole, raising a ridge 

 as it proceeds, hut seldom throwing up hillocks. 



As mole crickets often infest gardens by the 

 sides of canals, they are unwelcome guests to the 

 gardener, raising up ridges in their subterraneous 

 progress, and rendering the walks unsightly. If 

 they take to the kitchen quarters, they occasion 

 great damage among the plants and roots, by 

 destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, 

 and flowers. When dug out, they seem very slow 

 and helpless, and make no use of their wings by 

 day; but at night they come abroad, and make 

 long excursions : as I have been convinced by 

 finding stragglers, in a morning, in improbable 

 places. In fine weather, about the middle of 

 April, and just at the close of day, they begin to 

 solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, 

 continued for a long time without interruption, 

 and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or 

 goat- sucker, but more inward. 



About the beginning of May they lay their 

 eggs, as I was once an eye-witness; for a gardener, 

 at a house where I was on a visit, happening to 

 be mowing, on the 6th of that month, 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 : 



" Ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram : 

 Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 

 Apparent penetralia." 



There were many caverns and winding passages 

 leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed 

 and rounded, and about the size of a moderate 



