The Male Genital Armature of the Derrrmptera. 421 



through the proparameres, at least as far as the seminal vesicle : 

 perhaps it would be correct to call these rods the true proparameres, 

 for they act as supports and levers of the metaparameres. In the 

 true earwigs we see an analogous arrangement, but it is always the 

 outer margin of the proparameres that is chitinized, the inner 

 margin being tender and membranous, exactly the converse of the 

 case in Arixenia. 



In erection the preputial sac is reversed, as in the Protoder- 

 maptera, and protruded far beyond the parameres, and ventrally 

 to them, the chitinous armature being very prominent, the virga, 

 or whip-like end of the ejaculatory duct, extending well beyond 

 the tip of the longest chitin-plate. 



Some light is thrown on the function of these plates by the 

 figures of the organs in copula in Jordan and Burr. The furthest 

 plate lies within a slit between the two halves of the eighth 

 sternite of the female, and its hook catches the concave end of the 

 clutch or chitinized knob of the female, another fits on to the 

 apical margin of the left eighth sternite, another prevents the first 

 from slipping off the clutch ; they are in fact the apparatus by 

 which the male grips and holds the female. The metaparameres do 

 not seem to be used for this purpose at all, but to act rather as 

 feelers than as claspers. In the true earwigs, the metaparameres 

 are hard and horny, though usually softer and thinner on the 

 inner margin, and are probably true claspers. When the chitin- 

 plates occur in the true earwigs, they have some such function of 

 grasping ; anyhow, they give rigidity to the soft material of the 

 preputial sac. This is noticeable in the figure. 



Sub-order II.— HEMIMERINA. 



Jordan has discussed and figured the reproductive organs in 

 Hemimerus. As Verhoeff insists, it is essentially of Forficuline 

 type. The parameres are well developed ; the metaparameres are 

 long, rather dilated about the middle, tapering towards the apex, 

 where they are recurved into a sharp but simple, slender hook, 

 the curvature being stronger in one than in the other. There is a 

 single ejaculatory duct, though Jordan states that " it seems to 

 divide where it enters the outer half of the organ of copulation ; 

 but I am not sure on that point." Probably the second duct is 

 rudimentary, as there is a single pra?putial sac which is densely 

 denticulate. 



The form of the metaparameres recalls that of Acran ia horsfieldi, 

 but this can only be a coincidence. 



