146 INSE^ MISCELLANIES. 



is nothing more certain, Goldsmith tells us, than 

 that it lives among flowers and destroys them, and 

 when fruit has been wounded by flies, the earwig 

 generally comes in for a second feast, and sucks 

 those juices which they first began to broach ; yet 

 the insect, he adds, is not so noxious as it would 

 seem, since it is seldom found but where the mis- 

 chief has been originally begun by others. * Bing- 

 ley copies all . this without any suspicion of its 

 inaccuracy, and subjoins, that ' in the night they 

 may occasionally be seen in amazing numbers upon 

 lettuces and other esculent vegetables, committing 

 those depredations which are often ascribed to snails 

 or slugs.'! O" ^^^ contrary, it agrees with our 

 observation that the depredations frequently imputed 

 to earwigs are more usually committed by slugs, 

 particularly in the case of flowers. We had a con- 

 siderable collection of the finest varieties of heart's- 

 ease ( Viola tricolor), which, just as they came into 

 bloom, were rendered unsightly by holes and 

 notches gnawed into the petals during the night, 

 and we did not hesitate to accuse the earwigs of 

 the damage, till we began to reflect that it was too 

 early in the summer for them to appear in sufficient 

 numbers, the broods not being yet hatched. Obser- 

 vation being always preferable to the most plausible 

 conjecture, we soon satisfied ourselves of the fact by 

 examining our flowers after dark by candle-light, 

 when we did not find a single earwig, but a great 

 number of minute slugs, little larger than a pin's- 

 head, and ixjcently hatched, no doubt, from eggs de- 

 posited the preceding autumn. The leaves of the 

 plants were probably too tough and coarse for their 

 infant organs, since they uniformly attacked the 



* Animated Nature, iv, 241 . 

 t Anim. Biog. iv, 43 ; 6th edit. 



