18 INTRODUCTION. 



he is probably correct in supposing that it consists of soft bodied 

 insects. In captivity, his larvae and imagines fed sparingly on 

 the dead bodies of small spiders and flies and other minute 

 insects, showing a preference, however, for certain species. They 

 did not relish Lepidoptera or mosquitos, though they would 

 devour the bodies of the latter if hungry. Bread, raw meat, petals 

 of flowers, fruit, and minute fungi were offered and refused. 



The writer has fed Labidura riparia on bluebottles ; these they 

 suck dry and leave the empty skin. Xambeu tells us that Chelidura 

 pyrenaica is a veritable glutton. Tender vegetables, fruit, worms, 

 larvae, all are greedily eaten ; hut they have pronounced carni\orous 

 tastes. 



Many species are found in swarms on stinging nettles, but it is 

 probable that they are less attracted by the nettles themselves 

 than by the numbers of minute insects to which these plants offer 

 a home. 



Terry records of ChelisocJies morio, Fabr., in the Sandwich 

 Islands, that its habit of eating the leaf-hoppers has been ob- 

 served by several people. Young hoppers are seized and devoured 

 without the aid of the forceps, but these organs frequently assist 

 inholding an adult hopper whilst it is eaten at leisure. An ex- 

 amination of numerous crops invariably revealed only insect 

 remains, often entirely leaf-hopper. Those bred in captivity showed 

 during all iustars a marked preference for insect diet. 



Maternal Cava. 



The oft-quoted observations of de Gear on the solicitude of the 

 mother earwig for her ova and young larvae are worthy of 

 reproduction : — 



" At the commencement of the month of June, (says he) I found 

 under a stone a female earwig accompanied by several small insects 

 which I easily recognized as its young. They grouped round the 

 mother and did not leave her, and even placed themselves under 

 her stomach like little chicks under the hen. The insects of this 

 genus have then, in a kind of manner, care for their young, even 

 after their birth : and they seem to wish to protect them by 

 ^remaining near them. 



" The young resemble their mother in figure, except in one or 



two of their parts I placed them in a sand-box where I 



had put a little fresh earth. They did not enter the earth, and it 

 was curious to see how they ran under the stomach and between the 

 legs of the mother, who remained very quiet and allowed them to 

 do it : she seemed to cover them like a hen does her little chicks, and 

 they remained often in this position for hours 



" Another time, at the commencement of April 1759, I found 

 some female earwigs under some stones, together with a pile 

 of eggs on wliich the mother was seated and of which she took 

 the greatest care imaginable without ever moving a step away, 

 and this M. Frisch has already observed before me. I took it 



