LABIDURA RIPARIA. 27 



1900, says that L. riparia was first secured by the Rev. W. 

 Bingley on 7 July 1808. The specimens were exhibited the 

 following November by G. B. Sowerby at a meeting of 

 the old Entomological Society. Bingley, in a letter to the 

 Treasurer of the Linnean Society, states that as he was 

 walking- on the beach west of Christen urch, just at the close 

 of the evening, he saw two or three large insects running 

 along the sand, about or rather below high-water mark, and 

 from their size and manner he took them to be young mole- 

 crickets. Surprised at seeing such insects in that situation, 

 he examined them as well as the light would permit, and, by 

 their immense forceps and size, found them to be a species of 

 Forficula hitherto undescribed as British. He took home 

 some specimens, and ascertained them to be the Forficula 

 gigantea of Fabricius. Sloman, a friend of Bingley, sought 

 for them afterwards in the same place, and found a great 

 number concealed under large stones on the sands. The 

 largest Bingley could secure was nearly fifteen lines in 

 length (= about 30 mm.), exclusive of the antennae, which 

 measured somewhat more than half an inch. Sloman, who 

 lived at Wick, and Lockyer of Christchurch, accompanied 

 J. C. Dale and Dashwood to the same spot Mount Misery 

 in 1818, but with no success. This earwig came to be 

 reckoned amongst the extinct British species (its native 

 origin being actually questioned by the Rev. W. Kirby in 

 his 'Introduction to Entomology 7 ) until 1865, when a few 

 were taken on the shore close to Hengistbury Head by 

 Dosseter. The next was taken near the pier at Bourne- 

 mouth, by E. Saunders, in 1874. Kemp- Welch, in an article 

 on the great earwig (' Transactions of Dorset Field Club/ 

 vol. viii, p. 61) records and figures a specimen in his 

 possession as having been taken on the beach under Brank- 

 some Park, some two miles westward from Bournemouth, 

 within the limits of Dorsetshire, on 27 May 1886, by E. Lovett 

 of Croydon (see ' Entom/ 1900, p. 75). 



In addition to these mentioned by Dale, C. A. Briggs 

 had a male taken on the beach at Bournemouth, July 1850, 

 by E. W. Janson, and perhaps it might be possible to 

 find a few other records, or specimens, if it were worth 

 while to make the attempt. No further specimen seems 

 to have come to hand until in 1900 (about August) Major 

 R. B. Robertson took a female, which he gave to me, near a 

 street lamp in Pokesdown, Hants. On 17 July 1902 his 

 daughter, Miss Nellie Robertson, took a female on the sands 

 at the same place. A little later I received from Major 



