52 



FAMILY I. FORFICULIDJE. THE EARWIGS. 



Fig. 27. La- 

 bia minor (L.) 

 Female. X 4-. 

 Abdomen o f 

 male showing 

 form of for- 

 ceps. (After 

 Lugger.) 



Grand Chain, Posey Co., Ind., May 12 (W. 8. 

 B.), one male from beneath the bark about the base 

 of a sycamore tree; Marion Co., Ind., June 14 (H. 

 Morrison), one female at light. A second speci- 

 men from Marion Co. was taken on the wing April 

 20 by Philip Spong. Probably occurs frequently 

 throughout the State, but overlooked on account of 

 its small size. 



This little earwig is an introduced European 

 species which has become widely distributed in this 

 country ; ranging from Quebec and Ottawa, Can- 

 ada, where it is the only earwig known, west to 

 Nebraska and Manitoba and south to Georgia. It 

 is recorded also from Southern California by He- 

 bard (1917, 317). Burr (1897, 15) states that it is 

 "common in England and may often be taken in 

 June on hot evenings, flying about with Kove Bee- 

 tles over flowers and dung-hills. In the cold 

 weather it takes refuge among stones, in cracks, 

 etc." Labia minuta Scudder (1862, 415) is a 

 synonym. 

 6. LABIA CTJRVICACDA (Motschulsky), 1863, 2. Curved-tailed Earwig. 



Dark brown, the head often blackish; antennae brown, the tenth or 

 eleventh segment paler; legs brownish-yellow, the femora often blackish 

 at base. Pronotum longer than wide, rounded behind. Abdomen slight- 

 ly dilated, the last segment paler, impressed at middle, narrow, with a 

 small tubercle each side above the insertion of forceps. Legs of male for- 

 ceps remote and dilated at base, then strongly incurved and attenuated, 

 meeting or overlapping at tips, and forming a semi-circle; of female near- 

 ly straight, contiguous, unarmed. Length of body 5.5; of tegmina, 1.5; 

 of wings, 2 ; of forceps, 1 1.3 mm. 



A tropical cosmopolitan species taken in this country only at 

 Long Key, Fla., where it was found in numbers in March, 1910, 

 by Rehn and Hebard (1912, 237). It occurred only at the moist 

 bases of the leaves in the dying tops of cocoanut palms which had 

 been prostrated the previous year by a hurricane. More than 130 

 specimens were secured. One female guarding a tiny heap of eggs 

 was noted. When uncovered she immediately started to remove 

 these, taking two or three at a time to a spot an inch or two away. 

 The types of Motschulsky were from Ceylon. The males of ciirvi- 

 cauda are easily distinguished from those of minor by the much 

 more strongly curved legs of the forceps and by the lack of pro- 



