MOLE-CRICKET, Grifflota/pa, a genus of insects of the cricket (q.v.) family (achetidos or grmillida), remarkable for burrowing habits, and for the great strength and breadth of the fore-legs. The other legs are also large and strong, but of the form usual in the family.—The best known species (G. rulgaris) common in many parts of Europe, and pretty abundant in some places in England, but very local—is almost 2 iu. long; of a velvety brown color; the wings, when folded, do not cover much more than one-half of the abdomen, although large when expanded. It uses its fore-legs not only for digging burrows in earth, but for cutting through or tearing off the roots of plants which conic in its way. The mole-cricket feeds both on animal and vegetable substances, and often does no small injury to crops. The chirping, and somewhat musical call of the mole-cricket, produced in the same way as that of the common cricket, is heard chiefly in the end of spring and beginning of summer, and only in the evening or at night. In
some parts of England this sound has gained it the name of chur-warm. Another local English name i croaker. The female mole-cricket prepares a curious nest, a rounded subterranean cell, about as large as a hen's egg, having a complicated system of winding passages around it, and communicating with it. In this cell she deposits from 100 to 400 eggs. The young live for some time in society. They run actively, both in the larva and pupa states. The mole-cricket is very combative, and the victor generally eats the van quished.—A species of. mole-cricket (0. didactpla) does great, injury to _the plantations of sugarcanes in the Indies.—A curious Indian •insect, of a •elosely allied genus tschirndactylus monstrosus), has prodigiously long wings, which, as well as the wing covers, are rolled into spiral coils at the tips.