348 THE MOLE CRICKET. 



The precise age to which mole crickets live, is not 

 accurately known ; but it is probably much longer 

 than a year. The earth is their constant abode in the 

 winter. It is understood to dig downwards, so as to 

 elude the penetration of the frost ; and we have traced 

 in its burrows in loose soil, something like a drainage. 

 As the heat of the spring augments, it comes nearer 

 to the surface ; and is understood to come out and 

 fly abroad in the night, in order to pair ; but the fact 

 has not been well ascertained. 



The female prepares a nest for her progeny in clay. 

 It is excavated near the surface ; and though the 

 passages generally contain a quantity of loose mud, 

 the inside of the depository for the eggs is smooth 

 and beaten, so that the young may not suffer in their 

 helpless state. The eggs are hatched by the heat of 

 the sun, but the mother remains near, to defend them 

 from insects : but we have heard, though we have had 

 no opportunity of verifying the fact, that they and 

 she often fall a sacrifice to her half namesake the 

 mole ; which is now ascertained to be, what its struc- 

 ture always led one to suspect, one of the most vora- 

 cious little animals in nature. 



The mole crickets do not pass through what can 

 strictly be called a larva state ; and they have no 

 abstinent, or chrysalid state at all. Their first form 

 resembles the last, with the exception of the wings 

 and the thorax, which are not developed till the insect 

 has attained a considerable size. The wings are what 

 Linnaeus calls hemiplerous, or half-winged ; the upper 

 part consisting of two short, parchment-like cases, 

 under which the membranous wings, which are very 



