THE MOLE CRICKET 



One of the most remarkable, yet least familiar, of 

 British insects is the Mole Cricket {Gryllotalpa 

 vulgaris). To professed entomologists no doubt it 

 is familiar enough, but to the majority of people, 

 even to those residing in the country, and professing 

 a taste for natural history, it is scarcely known 

 except by name, and from the figures of it which 

 have been from time to time published. The 

 reason for this no doubt is to be found in the 

 subterranean nature of its haunts ; for it derives its 

 name from the analogy which it affords both in 

 structure and habits with the Mole. Belonging to 

 the krge and widely-distributed order Orthoptera — 

 or straight-winged insects — which comprises the 

 cockroaches, stick and leaf insects, grasshoppers, 

 crickets, and locusts, the genus Gryllotalpa has 

 representatives in almost all parts of the world, 

 China, Java, Australia, New Guinea, North and 

 South America, and the West Indies, each species 

 being peculiar to the country in which it resides. 

 The so-called Mole Cricket of India, described 

 and figured by Lockwood ^ belongs to quite another 

 genus {Schizodactylus monstrosus), and is remarkable 

 for the great length of the wing cases, which extend 

 1 Natural History, Sport and Travel in Bengal, 1878, p. 209. 



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