ANISOLABIS ANNULIPES. 19 



Tavistock colonv has died out. The house attached 



/ 



to the bakehouse was still standing in 1916. 



In 1897 Commander J. J. Walker R.N. found an 

 immature earwig in the Chemical Works at Queen- 

 borough in Kent, which Burr considered to be A. 

 annulipes. In September and October Walker obtained 

 mature examples, which confirmed the identity of the 

 insect. They were found in one place in the yard of 

 the works amongst bones and rubbish under some old 

 sacks and barrels. In April, 1 898, he could not find 

 the species and concluded that the floods of November, 

 1897, had brought the colony to an end. This, how- 

 ever, was not the case, for in September, 1904, he was 

 able to send me a couple of specimens, and in 1906 he 

 sent others from the "sack-heaps" and said that the 

 species was commoner than he had seen it before. As 

 these sacks are to some extent decomposing there is 

 perhaps a temperature above the normal, as there 

 would be in a manure-heap. In August, 1909, Walker 

 found it as usual. 



On more than one occasion the species has reached 

 Kew Gardens. That it has not established itself there 

 may be due to the war that is waged against such 

 intruders (see ' Entomologist,' 1897, p. 125). 



At the end of March, 1900, E. C. Bedwell, while 

 searching for beetles in a soap-works at Bow in the 

 East End of London, found Anisolabis annulipes 

 established there. They seemed to be living under 

 very similar conditions to those that obtain with the 

 Queenborough insects, these also being found amongst 

 bones and in company with Prolabia arachidis as at 

 Queenborough (see 'Entomologist,' 1900, p. 157).* 



Finally in November, 1910, in a bakery at Coat- 

 bridge in Scotland Gr. A. Brown obtained an earwig 

 which he subsequently found to be Anisolabis annulipes. 

 A further search yielded a number of specimens in- 

 cluding one or two nymphs. He thinks they would 

 be found elsewhere under similar conditions. 



* Recently a colony has been discovered in Cheshire. 



