FORFICULA AURICULABIA.. 49 



phytophagous, frugivorous, or even necrophorous by 

 necessity." 



One point in the oeconomy of F. anricnlaria is the 

 care it bestows on eggs and young. H. Gadeau de 

 Kerville in a paper published at Rouen in 1907 has 

 collected some of the information on this subject, from 

 the time of De Geer onwards. Though often quoted, 

 it is nevertheless expedient to give a translation of 

 De Geer's observations. He speaks substantially as 

 follows* :- 



" At the beginning of June I found under a stone a 

 female earwig with several small insects, which were 

 quite obviously her progeny. They did not leave her, 

 and even placed themselves under her body as chickens 

 under a hen. So insects of this kind take care, in a 

 way, of their offspring after they are born, and stay 

 near them as if wishing to protect them. 



" Except in a few points the young resemble their 

 parents. ... I placed them with their mother in 

 a box, wherein I had put a little fresh earth, and it 

 was curious to see how they crept under the body and 

 between the legs of their mother, who remained very 

 quiet and allowed them to do so. She, as it were, 

 covered them as a hen does her chicks, and they often 

 remained in this position for hours together 



" Again at the beginning of April 1759 I found 

 some female earwigs under stones, with a mass of 

 eggs, on which the mother was seated, and of which 

 she took the greatest care, never going a step away 

 from them. (M. Frisch has observed this before me.) 

 I took the mother with her eggs and placed them in a 

 box half-filled with fresh earth, the eggs being scattered 

 here and there ; but she soon picked up the eggs, 

 carrying them in her iaws. After a few days I saw 



/ " <I e/ 



that she had collected the eggs into one place on the 

 surface of the earth in the box, and that she remained 

 constantly seated upon them in such a way that she 

 really seemed to be covering them." 



t/ 



* C. de Geer, ' Memoires pour servir a 1'hist. des Ins ' t. iii, p. 548, 1773. 



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