BULLETIN 39, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



[22] 



FIG. 31. Hind wing of Earwig. 

 (From Comstock.) 



FIG. 32. An Ear- 

 wig. (From 

 Packard.) 



most of them herbivorous. They form" four distinct sections: 1st, 

 CURSORIA, Cockroaches; lid, UAPTATORIA, Mantes; 3d,AMBULATORiA, 

 \Yalking-sticks; 4th, SALTATORIA, Crickets, Grasshoppers, and Lo- 

 custs. 



"Suborder DERMAPTERA* (^/?,u, skin; xTepo*, wing), or "Earwigs, 

 consisting of the single family Forficulidre, which may be placed with 



the Orthoptera. They are rare insects with 

 us, but very common in Europe, where there 

 prevails a superstition that they 

 get into the ear and cause all 

 sorts of trouble. The front wings 

 are small and leathery; the hind 

 ones have the form of a quadrant, 

 and look like a fan when opened; 



and the characteristic feature is a pair of forceps-like 

 appendages at the end of the body, best developed in 

 the males. They are nocturnal in habit, hiding during 

 the day in any available recess. The female lays her 

 eggs in the ground, and singularly enough, broods over 

 them and over her young, the latter crowding under her like chicks 

 under a hen." 



"Order XEUROPTERA (vsup<, nerve; x-s f >6<,, wing), or Nerve- winged 

 insects. Characterized by having the wings reticulate with numerous 



veins so as to look like 

 net- work. The order 

 forms two natural divis- 

 ions, the first including 

 all those which undergo 

 a complete, and the sec- 

 ond, called Pseudo-neu 

 roptera ( Dictyotoptera , 

 B u r m e i s t e r ) , those 

 which undergo an in- 

 complete metamorpho- 

 sis. * * The in- 

 sects of this order arc, 

 as a whole, more lowly 

 organized, and more generally aquatic, than either of the others. A 

 natural arrangement of them is difficult on account of their degrada- 

 tional character. They present forms which are synthetic and closely 

 approach the other orders, and the evolutionist naturally looks upon 

 them as furnishing an idea of what the archetypal forms of our present 

 insects may have been. They are, as a rule, large and sluggish, with 



Fig. 33. A Draj;on-flv {Libclluln trimaculata). (From Packard.) 



' Euplrxopteni uf sonic authors from KV, well; 

 wings. 



, folded, referring to thr folded 



