150 
ORTHOPTER A.. 
finger-like projections on the shin. The mole-cricket of Eu¬ 
rope lays from two to three hundred eggs, and the young 
do not come to maturity till the third year; circumstances 
both contributing greatly to increase the ravages of these 
insects. It is observed, that, in proportion as cultivation is 
extended, destructive insects multiply, and their depredations 
become more serious. We may, therefore, in process of 
time, find mole-crickets in this country quite as much a pest 
as they are in Europe, although their depredations have 
hitherto been limited to so small an extent as not to have 
attracted much notice. Should it hereafter become necessary 
to employ means for checking them, poisoning might be 
tried, such as placing, in the vicinity of their burrows, grated 
carrots or potatoes mixed with arsenic. It is well known 
that swine will eat almost all kinds of insects, and that they 
are very sagacious in rooting them out of the gi’ound. Tliey 
might, therefore, he employed with advantage to destroy 
these and other noxious insects, if other means should fail. 
We have no house-crickets in America; ^ our species in¬ 
habit gardens and fields, and enter our houses only by acci¬ 
dent. Crickets are, in great measure, nocturnal and solitaiy 
insects, concealing themselves by day, and coming fi’om their 
retreats to seek their food and their mates by night. There 
are some species, however, which differ greatly from the 
others in their social habits. These are not unfrequently 
seen during the daytime in great numbers in paths, and by 
the roadside; but the other kinds rarely expose themselves 
to the light of day, and their music is heard only at night. 
With crickets, as with grasshoppers, locusts, and harvest- 
flies, the males only are musical; for the females are not 
provided with the instruments from which the sounds emitted 
[3 This Ifinfma^e may apply to the particular district in which Dr. Harris made 
his observations, but it would be gratuitous to saj' that we have no house-crickets 
in America, for nothing is better known to the country-people of Maryland than 
the “cricket on the hearth,” and in some sections of the West they are also well 
known to inhabit the chimney-places and first-floor apartments of the dwellings. 
— Uhler.] 
