FAMILY LIFE 



211 



themselves, after being laid are carefully rolled and cleaned 

 in the mother's mouth ; then they are watched and guarded 

 until hatched, as are the young also for at least a few days. 

 The female Anisolabis does not, however, maintain for long 

 her reputation as a good mother, for when the family '* had 

 once left her to seek food for themselves they could not 

 safely return lest she should endeavour to eat them." 



Similar but more prolonged care for offspring is shown 

 by a common European and British Shield-bug Acanthosoma 

 griseum^ whose habits were, like those of the earwig, observed 

 in the eighteenth century by De Geer. His observations 

 have been confirmed by 

 several naturaHsts whose 

 notes are conveniently sum- 

 marised in the recent work 

 of E. A. Butler (1923). E. 

 Parfitt watched how the 

 mother shield-bug " came 

 to the rescue " of a young- 

 ster touched by him with a 

 twig, " putting her antennae 

 down to the Httle thing and 

 drawing them over it." J. 

 Hellins saw a family of 

 twenty newly-hatched young 

 bugs beneath a birch-leaf 

 covered, together with the 

 empty egg-shells, by their 

 mother's body. At a later stage of their development he 

 writes that she " was now quite in a state of fuss ... if I 

 attempted to touch her brood she fluttered her wings 

 rapidly ... at night when the wind blew roughly, the 

 mother contrived to get them under her, and sat covering 

 them as at first." The point at which the story ends 

 suggests the progress of many other families ; the young 

 were seen *' just setting off on their travels," then " busy 

 exploring," while " the mother ran from place to place 

 feeling for them." There is also some evidence for maternal 



Fig. 57. — Seashore Bug (Aepophilus 

 bonnairei) coasts of South Britain, 

 Ireland and W. Europe. X 10. 



