ORTHOPTERA. 295 
much smaller than the above, and is met with in great numbers 
in the woods, where its leaps sometimes produce the noise of drops 
of rain. 
The female crickets have a long auger, with which they deposit 
their eggs, of which each one lays, towards the middle of the 
summer, about three hundred, in the cracks and crevices of the 
soil. The larve pass the winter in that state, and do not become 
pupee and perfect insects till the following summer. 
Mouffet relates that, in certain regions of Africa, the crickets 
are objects of commerce. They are brought up in little cages, as 
we do Canary birds, and sold to the inhabitants, who lke to hear 
their amorous chant. This song lulls them to sleep. It is said 
that certain peoples eat these insects. In France they are sought 


Fig. 305.—Mole Cricket (Gryllo-talpa vulgaris). 
after as baits for fishing, and are used also in menageries for 
feeding small reptiles. Next to Gryllus come the genera Gican- 
thus, insects of the south of Europe, which live on plants, and 
which one often sees fluttering about flowers; Spheria, which 
live in ant-hills; Platydactylus; and, lastly, the Mole Cricket 
(Gryllo-talpa), whose habits deserve attention for awhile. 
