LETTER XC. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



How diversified are the modes of life not only of 

 incongruous but even of congenerous animals ; and 

 yet their specific distinctions are not more various 

 than their propensities. Thus, while the field-cricket 

 delights in sunny dry banks, and the house-cricket 

 rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen 

 hearth or oven, the Gryllus gryllo talpa (the mole- 

 cricket) haunts moist meadows, and frequents the 

 sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all 

 its functions in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of 

 fore-teet curiously adapted to the purpose, it bur- 

 rows and works under ground like the mole, rais- 

 ing a ridge as it proceeds, but 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 destrojdng 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 im- 



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