FORFICULA LESNEI. 55 



VARIATION AND ABERRATION.- -There is but slight 

 variation in size or colour. AY. J. Ashdown notes that 

 the tips of the callipers of the male do not always 

 gape, but are sometimes in contact, and that occa- 

 sionally those organs are more elongate than usual. 

 W. West gave me a male, taken at Boxhill on 1 

 September 1898, in which the usually curved part of 

 the left branch of the callipers is nearly straight 

 (fig. 3, no. 5). 



DATE.- -In England F. lesnei is mature at the end 

 of the summer and in the autumn, some even being in 

 the nymphal stage in September. Ashdown says that 

 he takes only females in the spring. He therefore 

 concludes that they alone hibernate ; but perhaps both 

 sexes may do so, for Com 1 '- J. J. AYalker took a male 



in moss at Streatlev in Berks on 21 October 1905, and 



/ 



another male in a tuft of grass at Headington Wick 

 near Oxford on 24 November 1906. 



HABITS.- -In his 'British Orthoptera,' 1897, Burr 

 figured a Forjir/'hi /mbescens Gene, which he took in 

 Sept. 189(3 at the Warren, Folkestone. After examining 

 the figure de Bormans suggested that the insect was 

 really F. lesnei Finot. On Burr's examining the 

 insect further and comparing it with Finot's figures 

 and description, there was no doubt that the Folke- 

 stone earwig was a true F. lesnei. In October 1897 

 AY. AA r est took a male by sweeping on the chalk in 

 the neighbourhood of Reigate in Surrey at a spot where 

 Ononis was growing in plenty. During 1898, while 

 searching more especially for Hemiptera, AYest was on 

 the alert for F. lesnei and his efforts were crowned 

 with unexpected success. On 1 September, while 

 beating birch near Leatherhead, he took two males. 

 On the 3rd of the same .month, at Reigate, using the 

 sweeping-net from 10 a.m. till 3 p.m. for Hemiptera, 

 he swept every patch of Ononis he could find, and not 

 an earAvig came to the net ; but, when beating white- 

 thorn, hazel, etc., F. lesnei was taken quite commonly. 

 Clearly there was no special connection between the 



