Homes Without Hands: Being a Description of the Habitations of Animals, Classed According to Their Principle of Construction

Though spread over the face of the earth, and though almost every portion of the globe can boast its Mole-cricket, it is ever a local insect, being very fastidious in its choice of soil, and generally preferring a loose and sandy ground, wherein it can easily burrow. There is a little village near Oxford where the Mole-cricket is frequently found, its favorite residence being a wide piece of waste ground, covered with sand, which in some places is blown into hillocks by the wind, and in another is hollowed into pits by the sand-man’s spade. Grass tries to grow at intervals, and here and there its spreading roots bind together the loose soil, and it is in this curious locality that the Mole-cricket loves to dwell.

To procure the insect is no easy matter, for it always burrows to some considerable depth when the soil is so loose, and a laborer with a spade would find much difficulty in disinterring it. The recognized method of procuring these insects is, to mark their holes by day and to visit them at dusk, just when the insects, which are nocturnal in their habits, are beginning to be lively. A long and pliant grass-blade is then pushed into the hole, the end is grasped in the jaws of the offended inhabitant, and both grass-blade and Mole-cricket are drawn out together. By some persons the Mole-cricket is thought to be a wholly carnivorous insect, injuring the roots merely by its endeavoring to force a passage through them, and not by its desire to eat them. This theory was supported by sundry experiments, whereby the Mole-cricket was proved to be able to subsist on several substances, such as meat and insects, specimens having been fed upon ants alone. Dr. Kidd, however, found that they thrive well upon potato, and the best entomologists have decided that vegetable food is their proper diet, though they are able to eat animal food, and on some occasions seem to prefer it. A very decided proof that the Mole-cricket is, even in its wild state, a carnivorous being, is afforded by the fact that in the stomach have been found the relics of various insects.

Just as the mole constructs a habitation distinct from its ordinary galleries, so does this insect form a chamber for domestic purposes apart from the tunnels which ramify in so many directions. Near the surface of the ground a really large chamber is constructed, measuring about three inches in diameter, and nearly one inch in height. It is made very neatly, and the walls are carefully smoothed. Within this chamber the Mole-cricket deposits its eggs, which are generally from two to three hundred in number, and yellowish in color. As the chamber lies so near the surface of the ground, the genial sunbeams are able to raise the temperature sufficient for the hatching of the eggs, which in due course of time produce the tiny young, little white creatures, very like the parent in shape, except that they have no wings. They do not attain the perfect state until the third year. The reader will at once see that this chamber is analogous to the cavities made by the Dusky Ant, which has been described on page 168.

It is a rather remarkable fact that one species of this family burrows, not into earth, but into wood. Its form very much resembles that of the wood-burrowing beetles, the body being long and cylindrical, the legs very short and fitting into cavities at the sides of the body. Its scientific name is Cylindrodes Campbellii. This is one of the oddest-looking insects that can be conceived, and really bears no small resemblance to three inches of a blacklead pencil.

The black-bodied FIELD-CRICKET (Acheta campestris) is also one of the burrowing Orthoptera, working tunnels of considerable depth, and living in them during the day. By night it comes out of its home and sits at the mouth, chirping away for hours together. The banks at the side of a road or lane are favorite resorts of the Field-cricket, and I have noticed the insect peculiarly plentiful in the roads and lanes between Ramsgate and Margate. Like the mole-cricket, it is of a very combative nature, and may be drawn out of its tunnel by the simple process of pushing a grass-stem down the burrow. It is said that in France it is captured in rather a curious manner, an ant being tied to a thread and dropped into the hole. Being partly carnivorous, the cricket seizes the ant for the purpose of eating it, and is immediately dragged out of its house by the thread.

In the accompanying illustration is shown one of the well-known grasshoppers in the act of depositing its eggs. Its popular name is the WART-BITER, and its scientific title Gryllus [or Decticus] verrucivorus, this name being given to it because its bite is thought to have the property of removing warts.

If the reader will refer to the illustration, he will see that the end of the body is furnished with a long, double-bladed instrument, technically called the ovipositor, or egg-layer. This curious instrument, which is of course only found in the female insect, is of very great comparative length, and is used for the purpose of placing the eggs in a convenient spot. Pressed closely together, the blades form an admirable boring instrument, but when the required hole is made, the blades separate so as to permit an egg to pass between them, and guide it to the exact spot where it is to lie. The insect does not place many eggs in one spot, but after depositing some ten or twelve eggs, she goes off to another locality and repeats the process until her store is exhausted. She thus contrives to spread her offspring rather widely over the ground, and avoids the danger of losing the entire brood by a single accident.

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When the young insects are first hatched, they are nearly white, and of very small dimensions, being no larger than ordinary gnats. At the left hand of the engraving may be seen a small cavity, in which the young Grylli have just been hatched, several of them being shown of their natural size. The well-known Great Green Grasshopper, which is sometimes found in our hedges and nut-trees, and so often frightens the ignorant, is closely allied to the insect which has just been described, and has very similar habits.

The terrible Migratory Locust, which passes over the country in such countless hosts, is also a partial burrower, laying its eggs beneath the surface of the ground. It is stated by one naturalist that the eggs are placed in cells something like the chambers of the mole-cricket, the cell itself being about an inch and a half deep, and the entrance to it being a nearly horizontal tube of earth, coated with a kind of glutinous secretion. Sometimes the eggs themselves are enveloped with this glutinous substance, and are stuck together in masses of determinate shape. South America is peculiarly rich in these egg-masses, many varieties of which may be seen in Mr. Waterton’s collection. The young do not attain their wings for three years, and during that period are called in Southern Africa by the popular and expressive name of voetgangers, or foot-goers.

BEFORE leaving the earth-burrowers, it is necessary to mention the larva of the common May-fly, or Ephemera. Sometimes this larva hides itself under stones, but it often burrows under the muddy banks, and there constructs a very curious habitation. If a portion of the mud be carefully removed, it will be seen to be perforated by a series of holes, a few being nearly circular, but the greater part oval, the long diameter being horizontal, in order to suit the peculiar shape of the inhabitant.

These are the habitations of the Ephemera grub; and if the block of mud be laid open, so as to exhibit longitudinal sections of the holes, the spectator will perceive that each hole is double, the two tubes lying parallel to each other, and being in fact only one tube bent upon itself.

Mr. J. Rennie, in his “Insect Architecture,” mentions a curious modification of these tubes: “In the bank of the stream at Lee, in Kent, we had occasion to take up an old willow stump, which, previous to its being driven into the bank, had been perforated in numerous places by the caterpillar of the goat moth (Cossus ligniperda). From having been driven among the moist clay, these perforations became filled with it, and the grubs of the Ephemera found them very suitable for their habitations; for the wood supplied a more secure protection than if their galleries had been excavated in the clay. In these holes of the wood we found several empty, and some in which were full-grown grubs.”

Our last example of the earth-burrowing insects is a truly remarkable one. It is scarcely possible to conceive any mode of life more curious than that which is passed by the insect which now comes before our notice—a mode of life so strange and unique, that if it had been related by one observer only, no matter how trustworthy he might have been, his testimony would have been rejected by nearly every man of science. I allude to the celebrated insect known as the ANT-LION (Myrmeleon formicarius). In its mature state it presents nothing worthy of remark, except, perhaps, the elegance of its form, and the delicacy of its wide gauzy wings, which much resemble those of the common Dragonfly. But in its larval condition it is truly a wonderful being.

Though predaceous, and feeding chiefly on the most active insects, it is itself slow, and totally unable to chase them; and were it not furnished with some quality which serves it in the lieu of speed, it would soon die of hunger. The very look of the larva is enough to make the observer marvel as to its method of obtaining food. Thick, short, soft, and fleshy, the body is supported on six very feeble legs, of which the hinder pair only are employed for locomotion, and these can only drag it slowly backward. Indeed, the general outline of the body and head bears no small resemblance to that of a fat-bodied garden spider. So feeble are its limbs, that they are practically of very little use in locomotion, and even when they are cut off, the creature can move nearly as well as when they were in their places. From the front of the head project a pair of long, slender, curved mandibles, which give the first intimation that the grub has any thing formidable in its nature. These mandibles are curiously made, being deeply grooved throughout their length, and permitting the maxillæ, or inner pair of jaws, to play up and down them.

Inert and helpless as it may seem, this grub is a ruthless destroyer of the more active insects, and, moreover, seldom catches any but the most active. Choosing some sandy spot, where the soil is as far as possible free from stones, it begins to form the celebrated pitfalls by which it is enabled to entrap ants and other insects. Depressing the end of its abdomen, and crawling backward in a circular direction, it traces a shallow trench, the circle varying from one to three inches in diameter. It then makes another round, starting just within the first circle, and so it proceeds, continually scooping up the sand with its head, and jerking it outside the limits of its trench. By continuing this process, and always tracing smaller and smaller circles, the grub at last completes a conical pit, and then buries itself in the sand, holding the mandibles widely extended.