On the anatomy of the mole-cricket

The insect described in this paper is common in certain peat bogs a few miles west of Oxford, and is found within 18 inches of the surface. Like the mole, its limbs are particularly calculated for burrowing; and to prevent the necessity of its excavating a passage large enough to admit of its turning round, it has the power of moving as easily in a retrograde as in a progressive direction. Its colour closely resembles that of the mould in which it lives ; and in common with many other insects, it has the power of assuming a lifeless appearance when suddenly disturbed. Having kept some of them in glass vessels for several weeks, the author remarked that they preferred the potatoe to other vegetable food, but that they attacked raw meat with especial greediness, and upon emergency attacked each other, in which case the victor soon devoured the fleshy and soft parts of the vanquished. But although they are very voracious, they are equally remarkable for their power of abstaining from food, and have been kept alive for nine or ten months in garden mould without the possibility of obtaining any other nourishment than such as it might contain. Having noticed the general habitudes and characters of the insect, Dr. Kidd proceeds to describe its separate parts, and enumerates the peculiarities of the head, thorax, and abdomen. The digestive organs, he observes, more closely resemble those of a graminivorous bird than of any other animal ; the œsophagus terminating in a large oval crop, communicating by a muscular tube with the gizzard, which is nearly spherical, and has a thick external muscular coat lined by a glandular membrane, the inner surface of which is divided longitudinally into six equal parts, each furnished with three series of serrated teeth of the hardness of tortoiseshell, and amounting in all to 270.