INSECTS 



THE MOLE CRICKETS 



The mole crickets (Fig. 34) are solemn creatures of the 

 earth. They live like true moles in burrows underground, 

 usually in wet fields or along streams. Their forefeet are 

 broad and turned outward for digging like the front feet of 

 moles. But the mole crickets differ from real moles in 

 having wings, and sometimes they leave their burrows at 

 night and fly about, being occasionally attracted to lights. 

 Their front wings are short and lie flat on the back over 

 the base of the abdomen, but the long hind wings are 

 folded lengthwise over the back and project beyond the tip 

 of the body. 



Notwithstanding the gloomy nature of their habitat, the 

 male mole crickets sing. Their music, however, is solemn 

 and monotonous, being always a series of loud, deep-toned 

 chirps, like churp, churp, churp, repeated very regularly 

 about a hundred times a minute and continued indefinitely 

 if the singer is not disturbed. Since the notes are most 

 frequently heard coming from a marshy field or from the 

 edge of a stream, they might be supposed to be those of a 

 small trog. It is difficult to capture a mole cricket in the 

 act of singing, tor he is most likely standing at an opening 

 in his burrow into which he retreats before he is discovered. 



THE FIELD CRICKETS 



This group of crickets includes Gryllus as its typical 

 member, but entomologists give first place to a smaller 

 brown cricket called Nemobius. There are numerous spe- 

 cies of this genus, but a widely distributed one is N. vitta- 

 tus, the striped ground cricket. This is a little cricket, 

 about three-eighths of an inch in length, brownish in color, 

 with three darker stripes on the abdomen, common in 

 fields and dooryards (Fig. 35). In the fall the females lay 

 their eggs in the ground with their slender ovipositors 

 (D, E) and the eggs (F) hatch the following summer. 



The song of the male Nemobius is a continuous twitter- 



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