EARWIGS. 



CHAPTER I. 



DERM.IPTERA, OR EUPLEXOPTERA. 



The position, and even the very name of the insects which now 

 come before us, are by no means settled. We all know what to 

 call a beetle, a bee, a butterfly, or a gnat ; but there is no such 

 certainty about an Earwig — some naturalists considering them 

 as forming an order of their own, some as coming at the end 

 of the Beetles, and others as belonging to the Orthopterous 

 insects, and being a link between them and the Beetles. 



Van der Hoeven, in his " Handbook of Zoology," makes the 

 following remarks in favour of this arrangement : — "At all events, 

 these insects have greater agreement with the Orthoptera than 

 with the Coleoptera ; tliey differ from the last by their incom- 

 plete metamorphosis and by many particulars of internal struc- 

 ture. The great size of the under wings in comparison with the 

 elytra is very common in the Orthoptera (to refer to Phasma 

 alone), and the reflexion of the point of the wing also is not 

 wanting in some other Orthoptera." 



Then there is a difficulty about their scientific name. By 

 some they are called Dermaptera, i.e. " skin- winged," because 

 their elytra are soft and leathery, instead of being hard and 

 stiff, like those of most beetles. By others they are termed 

 Euplexoptera, or " beautifully folded wings," in allusion to the 

 wonderful manner in which their large, gauzy wings are folded 

 beneath the tiny elytra. As if to add to the perplexity, some 

 entomologists have given the name of Dermaptera to the grass- 

 hoppers, cockroaches, crickets, and other insects which are better 

 known by the title of Orthoptera. I cannot bring myself to 



