86 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



predated or noted in detail. The complexity of the wingfold is 

 such, however, that the need of an accessory organ like the for 

 ceps appears by no means improbable, and in the absence of any 

 other suggestion of general pertinence, it seems not unwarranted 

 to proceed on the assumption that the primary use of the forceps 

 of the earwig is the unfolding of the wings. 



It is, of course, to be expected that such organs as the forceps 

 would be utilized in other ways, though the failure of entomolo 

 gists to discover such secondary functions may be taken as an 

 indication that no very extensive adaptation has taken place. 

 The most that can be said at present is that both in the earwig 

 and in Japyx the long, slender hairs with which the forceps are 

 sparingly clothed are an indication that the tactile sensibility resid 

 ing in the stylets of many insects is at least partially retained.. In 

 some genera the forceps have become enlarged and thickened to 

 an extent strongly suggestive of a defensive use, and it is of further 

 interest to note that such forms are often wingless, and that the 

 broadening and thickening of the abdomen tends to diminish the 

 flexibility which is retained by the more slender form and laxer 

 skeletal structure of the winged genera. The unusually broad 

 abdomen of the winged African genus Apachya is an exception 

 to this rule, but here flexibility is provided for by the extreme 

 thinness of this part of the body, whils the forceps are so peculiar 

 as to suggest the existence of some unique adaptation. There 

 also exist winged species with robust bodies and strong forceps, 

 but, like many beetles, these may make no use of their wings. 

 Indeed, it is easy to understand the evident tendency toward the 

 abandonment of so specialized and difficult, and at the same time 

 so relatively unnecessary an activity as flying seems to be among 

 the earwigs. With the earwigs, as with the termites, the wings 

 probably serve the single important purpose of cross-fertilization, 

 interbreeding, or panmixia, which conduces at once to organic 

 vigor and to evolutionary progress. But owing to their more 

 active habits and their freedom from social organization and caste 

 specialization, the power of flight is of much less vital importance 

 to the earwigs than to the termites, and although the latter use 

 their wings for but a single flight all sexual individuals are winged, 

 while many genera of earwigs long since abandoned flight alto 

 gether. 



The existence of so many wingless earwigs is not, however, an 

 argument against the use of the forceps with the wings, nor against 

 the adequacy of such an explanation of the evolutionary origin 

 and universal presence of the forceps in this group of insects. 

 Such an objection could be maintained only on the theory that 

 the ancestral earwig was wingless, and that wings have been in 

 dependently developed by different genera of earwigs, a position 

 which nobody is likely to maintain. It is appreciated, however, 



