416 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
Hapithus vagus Morse. 
Apithes agitator Scxjdder, Psj'che, vol. 9, p. 105, Sept. 1900. 
Hapithus vagus Morse, Psyche, vol. 23, p. 179, Dec. 1916. 
This adventive species is a brown, robust-bodied Cricket about 
three-fifths of an inch long, which was accidentally introduced into 
the greenhouse of the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, Mass., and 
maintained itself there for five or six years about the beginning of 
this century. 
Nothing is known as to the country of its origin, at least defi- 
nitely. It was injurious through its propensity for nibbling the 
tender green leaves of many varieties of plants, especially ferns. 
Its final extermination in the greenhouse was brought about in 
part by the introduction of a number of small frogs which snapped 
up the Crickets greedily at every opportunity. 
THE BURROWING OR MOLE-CRICKETS— GRYLLOTALPINAE 
AND TRIDACTYLINAE. 
The Mole-crickets present an interesting instance of adaptation 
of insect structure to a special and unusual mode of life — tunnel- 
ing through the soil — an adaptation in which the same mechanical 
principles are involved as in the modification of vertebrate struc- 
ture shown by the mole ; consequently the name of Mole-cricket is 
exceptionally apt. 
The antennae are relatively short and insignificant, while the 
cerci are unusually long and well developed, serving as efficient 
guides during backw^ard movement in the underground galleries; 
the head is of medium size, rounded, armed with powerful, pro- 
truding jaws for cutting rootlets and opening a way through the 
soil; the pronotum is very large, strongly built, and of such a 
shape, combined with the head, as most effectively to prepare a 
passage through the soil for the rest of the body. The fore legs 
are enormously developed, being relatively long, exceptionally 
broad and powerful, with flattened, sharp-edged, tooth-like pro- 
jections as effective as spades for digging and displacing the soil. 
In the true or large Mole-crickets {Gryllotalpa and Scapteriscus) 
the hind femora are relatively small and weak and are of little use 
as leaping organs, in strong contrast with their development in 
most of the family. The ovipositor has disappeared as an ex- 
ternal organ, being in the way and no longer needed by a burrow- 
