{335}[Illustration: FIG. 207.—Alimentary canal and appendages of the mole-cricket: _a_, head; _b_, salivary glands and receptacle; _c_, lateral pouch; _d_, stomato-gastric nerves; _e_, anterior lobes of stomach; _f_, peculiar organ; _g_, neck of stomach; _h_, plicate portion of same; _i_, rectum; _k_, lobulate gland; _l_, extremity of body; _m_, Malpighian tubes. (After Dufour.)] The alimentary canal and digestive system of _Gryllotalpa_ present peculiarities worthy of notice. Salivary glands and reservoirs are present; the oesophagus is elongate, and has on one side a peculiar large pouch (Fig. 207, _c_); beyond this is the gizzard, which is embraced by two lobes of the stomach. This latter organ is, beyond the lobes, continued backwards as a neck, which subsequently becomes larger and rugose-plicate. On the neck of the stomach there is a pair of branching organs, which Dufour considered to be peculiar to the mole-cricket, and compared to a spleen or pancreas. The single tube into which the Malpighian tubules open is seated near the commencement of the small intestine. These tubules are very fine, and are about one hundred in number. The arrangement by which the Malpighian tubules open into a common duct instead of into the intestine itself appears to be characteristic of the Gryllidae, but is said to occur also in _Ephippigera_, a genus of Locustidae. According to Leydig[262] and Schindler the Malpighian tubules are of two kinds, differing in colour, and, according to Leydig, in contents and histological structure. Near the posterior extremity of the rectum there is a lobulated gland having a reservoir connected with it; this is the chief source of the foetid secretion the mole-cricket emits when seized. The nervous chain consists of three thoracic and four abdominal ganglia; these latter do not extend to the extremity of the body; {336}the three anterior of the four ganglia are but small, the terminal one being much larger. The number of eggs deposited by a female mole-cricket is large, varying, it is said, from 200 to 400. The mother watches over them carefully, and when they are hatched, which occurs in a period of from three to four weeks after their deposition, she supplies the young with food till their first moult; after this occurs they disperse, and begin to form burrows for themselves. It has been said that the young are devoured by their parents, and some writers have gone so far as to say that 90 per cent of the progeny are thus disposed of. M. Decaux, who has paid considerable attention to the economy of the mole-cricket,[263] acquits the mother of such an offence, but admits that the male commits it. The number of eggs in one nest is said to be about 300.