offedintj the Peas and Beans. 
435 
So great a pest are these insects, that there is no want of reme- 
dies or moeles of extirpating them, which I will now proceed to 
discuss, and as they have been suggested and tried by first-rate 
cultivators, they cannot fail to be serviceable to those who may 
be so unfortunate as to suffer from the inroads of the Mole- 
cricket. I must, however, not omit to observe that some natu- 
ralists have an idea that this animal is even beneficial, from its 
carnivorous habits, but it is scarcely possible that so many expe- 
rienced gardeners should have unhesitatingly stigmatised this insect 
in various countries for at least a century, if it did not deserve the 
bad character it has obtained. What will those, who maintain an 
opinion that jNIole-crickets are beneficial, say to Mr. Bracken- 
ridge's unqualified statement ? that " it is the greatest enemy the 
gardener has to contend with at Berlin, where it appears about 
the be^innins of summer in mvriads : nothinij in the herbaceous 
way is proof against its ravages;" and he adds, '• I have seen the 
stem of a dahlia an inch thick cut through by it in the course of 
a night, with as much precision as if done with a knife."* It is 
true that Dr. Kidd, in his admirable Memoir upon this subject, 
says that Mole-crickets prefer raw meat, and will attack each 
other ; when the victor devours the flesh of the vanquished, but 
that they can live nine or ten months without food.f Bouche 
gives similar evidence of their ferocious disposition when he states 
that luckily the mother devours a great number of her offspring, 
so that out of a hundred not more than eight or ten survive.''^] I 
can also bear testimony to their carnivorous habits, for one that I 
kept alive with grass turves in the cage, fed upon the caterpillars 
of the Lacke3 -moth,§ with which 1 supplied it for some time, 
and it is reported to devour worms and subterranean larva? : this, 
however, only shows that the Mole-cricket is omnivorous. 
It has been stated that Mole-crickets may be enticed under a 
glass or pot, by using some odoriferous composition, in the same 
way as rats are taken ; and Scopoli, an Austrian naturalist, main- 
tains that they are attracted by horse-dung and driven away by 
that of pigs, the warmth arising from the former probably suiting 
their economy. Mr. A. M'Barnet found that lamp-oil destroys 
them very readily, and soap-suds also will kill them, but not so 
speedily. He is of opinion that the refuse of soap-manufactories 
or any greasy manure might be serviceable, and also soot, lime, 
and like substances. || A simple plan of pouring water into their 
* Gardener's Mag:., vol. xii. p. 300. 
t Vide Philosophical Transactions. 
Ij; Bouche, Naturgeschichte der Garten Insecten, p. 35. 
Clisiocampa neustria, Curtis's Brit. Ent., I'ol. 229, and Gardener's Cluon., 
vol. iii. p. 2-14. 
II Trans. Ent. Soc. vol. ii. p. xi. 
