THE DERMAPTERA (EARWIGS) OF THE UNITED STATES 



NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



By Malcolm Burr, 



Fellow of the Entomological, Zoological, and Linnean Societies of London. 



The opportunity of examining the collection of Dermaptera (Ear- 

 wigs) in the United States National Museum has been a very great 

 privilege to me. It has enabled me to see the types of many of the 

 American species at a time when an examination of most of the types 

 of the European collections has been fresh in my memory. In several 

 instances I have actually been able to compare the types of Caudell 

 and Rehn with those of older European authors. Consequently 

 I have been able to correlate the work done in recent years in America 

 with that done by European authors. When we remember that of 

 all the types of earwigs in existence, with the exception of those of 

 Scudder, Caudell, and Rehn, are preserved in European collections, 

 the importance of this opportunity will be realized. 



The Dermapatera are not an easy group, and the difficulty is in- 

 creased by the fact that no satisfactory general comprehensive account 

 based upon a thorough examination of original specimens has yvt 

 been published; for de. Bormans' Monograph has numerous imper- 

 fections, and is already long since out of date. So few species have 

 been well illustrated that it is of the utmost importance that authen- 

 tic collections be compared. It is the remoteness of the muse- 

 ums of England, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, etc. that is responsible for 

 such errors as have crept into the work of the American authors. 

 Knowing only too well the difficulties in dealing with such a group, 

 when our total knowledge is so imperfect, the classification in a state 

 of flux, and the material available relatively so small, I can not sup- 

 press my surprise that the work of the American authors is so good. 



Several years of friendly correspondence with Prof. Lawrence 

 Bruner and Messrs. Scudder. Rehn, and Caudell has thus been 

 crowned with an actual examination of the material on which they 

 worked, so that the friendship grown up in -pile of the intervening 

 seas has been carried to its logical conclusion. 



I hope that this account of an European entomologist's examina- 

 tion of American material may be of real use in correlating the labors 

 of the workers iu the Old and New Worlds. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 38— No. 1760. 



44. 



