LABIDURA RIPARIA. 23 



these insects become darker in drying, some apparent 

 colour-variations may be due simply to the fact that 

 descriptions were made from dried specimens. Brachy- 

 pterous examples with reduced elytra and squared 

 pronotum were placed by Kirby in a special genus, 

 Demogorgon, but this arrangement cannot stand. 

 Some aberrations have been noticed. An individual 

 taken near Christchurch, Hants, on 26 Aug. 1912, 

 had the tip of its callipers bent at an angle and 

 turned inwards (fig. 3, no. 8), and had no wing-tips 

 visible, while the wings themselves were either 

 deformed or damaged. A male taken on 20 Aug. 

 1912 had but one visible wing-tip. On 31 Aug. 1912 a 

 male was captured with the left branch of the callipers 

 (fig. 3, no. 7) considerably shorter than the right one. 



DATE. Most of the recorded captures in Britain 

 have been made in July and August ; but some have 

 taken place in May and September. There seems to 

 be no information available for making, a more 

 definite statement. Specimens of all ages are to be 

 met with in August, one found on 27 Aug. 1904 

 being* verv small indeed. Finot says : " On trouve 



O i/ v 



des individus adultes pendant presque toute 1 anriee, 

 sous les debris, les pierres et les paquets de goemon ' 

 (' Faune de la France '). 



HABITS.- -In the British habitat the requisite con- 

 dition for the presence of //. riparia seems to be a slide 

 of loose soft sand (PI. IV, fig. 1) with some stones, pre- 

 ferably flat ones (some 4 or 5 inches across), lying on 

 its surface. Often there is a burrow under the stone, 

 into which the earwig can retreat. Sometimes their 

 presence may be guessed by small holes in the sand 

 leading under the stones beneath which they pass the 

 day. When a stone is removed and the insect is 

 exposed to the light, the hind part of the abdomen, 

 with the callipers, is often thrown forward over the 

 back, the earwig not trying at first to escape. This 

 gives it a very strange appearance and seems to be a 



