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296 THE INSECT WORLD. 
The Mole Crickets are distinguished from all other insects by | 
the structure of their fore-legs, which are wide and indented, in | 
such a manner as to resemble a hand, analogous to that of the | 
mole. ‘This hand betrays its habits much better than our hands | 
betray ours. One need not be much of a fortune-teller to read on | 
it its digging habits. They make use of their hands, indeed, as 
spades, with which they hollow out subterranean galleries, and | 
accumulate at the side of the entrance-hole the rubbish thus | 
drawn out. Their French name comes from the old French word 
courtille, which means garden. It reminds one that these are | 
the favourite haunts of these destructive insects. 
If the Mole Crickets, or Cowrtiliéres, have spades to their front | 
legs, their hind-legs are very little developed, so that it would 
be perfectly impossible for them to jump, particularly as their 
large abdomen would hinder their so doing. The wings are broad, 
and fold back in the form of a fan; they make little use of 
them, and it is only at night-fall that the mole cricket is seen 
to disport himself, describing curves of not much height in the | 
air. It is found principally in cultivated land, kitchen gardens, 
nursery gardens, wheat fields, &c., where it scoops out for | 
itself an oval cavity communicating with the surface by a ver- 
tical hole (Fig. 806). On this hole abut numerous horizontal 
galleries, more or less inclined, which permit the insect to gain its | 
retreat by a great many roads when pursued. Bs | 
It is easy to understand that an insect which undermines 
land in this way must cause great damage to cultivation. 
Whether the crops serve it for food or not, they are not the less 
destroyed by its underground burrowings. Lands infested by the 
mole cricket are recognisable by the colour of the vegetation, 
which is yellow and withered ; and the rubbish which these miners 
heap up at the side of the openings leading to their galleries, 
resembling mole-hills in miniature, betrays their presence to 
the farmer. To destroy them they pour water or other liquids 
into their nests, or else they bury, at different distances, vessels) 
filled with water, in which they drown themselves. From the 
month of April the males betake themselves to the entrance of 
their burrows and make their cry of appeal. Their notes are slow, 
vibrating, and monotonous, and repeated for a long time without 

