THE MOLE CRICKET 



159 



and can have no real anomalies. A cursory glance at the insect 

 will at once point out its habits, for the general shape, as -well 

 as the strange development of the fore-limhs, and the peculiar 

 formation of the first pair of feet, are so similar to the corre- 

 sponding members of the mole that the identity of their pursuits 

 is at once evident. 



Like the mole, the insect passes nearly the whole of its life 

 underground, digging out long passages by means of its spade- 

 like limbs, and traversing them with some swiftness. Like the 

 mole, it is fierce and quarrelsome, is even ready to fight with its 

 kind, and if victorious, always tears to pieces its vanquished 

 opponent. Like the mole, it is exceedingly voracious, and 

 requires so much food, that if several of them be confined in the 

 same cage and kept only for a short time without food, the 

 strongest wiU fall upon the weakest, kill and devour them. 

 Like the mole also, it is useful enough in the fields, where its 

 tunnels form a kind of subsoil drainage, but it is equally de- 

 structive in the garden, working great havoc among young plants 

 and flowers. One species that inhabits Jamaica has done great 

 damage to the young sugar-canes soon after they had begun to 

 shoot up. 



Though spread over the face of the earth, and though alniost 

 every portion of the globe can boast its Mole Cricket, it is ever 

 a local insect, being very fastidious in its choice of soU, and 

 generally preferring a loose and sandy ground, wherein it can 

 easily burrow. There is a little village near Oxford, where the 

 Mole Cricket is frequently found, its favourite residence being a 

 wide piece of waste ground, covered with sand, which in some 

 places is blown into hillocks by the wind, and in another is 

 hollowed into pits by the sandman's spade. Grass tries to grow 

 at intervals, and here and there its spreading roots bind together 

 the loose soil, and it is in this curious locality that the Mole 

 Cricket loves to dwell 



To procure the insect is no easy matter, for it always burrows 

 to some considerable depth when the soil is so loose, and a 

 labourer with a spade would find much difi&ctdty in disinterring 

 it. The recognised method of procuring these insects is, to 

 mark their holes by day and to visit them at dusk, just when 

 the insects, which are nocturnal in their habits, are beginning to 

 be lively. A long and pliant grass-blade is then pushed into the 



