14 IIIMTIS1I ORTIIOPTERA. 



cannot say how many, and by the end of July the 

 single survivor, a female, was mature. She was small, 

 probably through being brought up under unnatural 

 conditions, and maybe being short of food. They 

 were usually fed on fruit, whereas their proper food 

 is probably not vegetable but animal. They ate 

 greedily of banana, on one occasion, antennae and 

 palpi moving incessantly the w r hile. 



On 20 April 1914 Dr. T. A. Chapman gave me a 

 living nymph of F. auricular ia with the following 

 history :--" Early in January I brought into the house 

 a plant in a pot that had up till then been out-of- 

 doors. One day early in February I found on a leaf 

 of the plant a young earwig. I expected others to 

 show themselves, but none did. It was so small that 

 I was rather surprised it was out of the 'nest.' I 

 have since kept it and fed it. It has moulted three 

 times when it ate the cast skins, and has regenerated 

 two joints that were missing from an antenna. How 

 did it happen that there was a solitary earwig at such 

 a date ? It must have been still younger when brought 

 in, as it was several weeks later when I found it." I 

 saw no evidence of its moulting again till 10 May, 

 when some time that day (after the morning) it cast 

 its skin, which it did not eat, and about 6 p.m. was 

 pure pellucid white except the eyes which were black. 

 It was then a small mature male. It had eaten very 

 little, I fancy, since I received it ; probably I did not 

 give it food to its liking. 



On one occasion there was beaten from a tree on 

 Esher Common, about 10.30 a.m., a male which had 

 apparently just cast its last nymph-skin. It was of 

 a uniform pale creamy-white tint, except the eyes, 

 which were black, and a little dark cloudiness in the 

 lower part of the abdomen, due apparently to the 

 contents. It had practically assumed its correct colours 

 by evening. This was on the 26th of September (1900), 

 which seems a late date for the nymph. 



In the course of experiments in breeding F. tni 



