48 
ORTHOPTERA. 
and the insect’s anterior pair of legs are converted into 
fiat digging organs, having an outward direction similar 
to the hand of the mole. Where the mole-cricket 
(Gryllotalpa vulgaris) abounds, it causes much damage 
to the crops, but it is very local in its distribution. I 
have never seen or heard of one in Shropshire. 
A short notice of the Cockroach and Earwig will con¬ 
clude my sketch of the Orthoptera. 
The Cockroach, one of the cursorial Orthoptera, is the 
so-called black-beetle of our houses—the well-known 
pest of our kitchens and pantries. Nocturnal in their 
habits, omnivorous as to diet, black as to colour and 
character, of a most unpleasant odour, which they com¬ 
municate to objects which they have touched, cock¬ 
roaches are universally regarded with aversion and dis¬ 
gust. The specific Latin name of Blatta Orientalis was 
given to this insect to indicate its original home, sup¬ 
posed by some to be India. In Gilbert White’s time 
cockroaches do not appear to have been so common and 
well known as they are now, for he regards this insect as 
a new introduction into Selborne in 1790. He writes 
—“ A neighbour complained to me that her house was 
overrun with a kind of black-beetle, or, as she expressed 
herself, with a kind of black-bob, which swarmed in her 
kitchen when they got up in the morning before day¬ 
break. Soon after this account, I observed au unusual 
insect in one of my dark chimney-closets, and find since 
that in the night time they swarm also in my kitchen. 
On examination I soon ascertained the species to be the 
blatta orientalis of Linnaeus.” 
These insects have a remarkable mode of oviposition 
for the eggs are not discharged separately, but are col- 
