MORSE: ORTHOPTERA OF NEW ENGLAND. 293 
Beneath paler, yellowish brown, palest on legs and base of abdo- 
men, deepening posteriorly to chestnut on apex of abdomen and 
forceps. 
Measurements. 
Body and forceps Width Forceps Antenna 
Male 6-7 1-1.3 1.2-1.5 2.3-2.8 
Female 5-6 1-1.3 .85-1.2 2.3-2.8 mm. 
The Little Earwig is our smallest species and the only one at all 
generally distributed in our territory, having been found over a 
large part of the United States. It ranks as a Palaearctic species 
but whether it entered America in historic or geologic times 
is unknown. The other species which have been captured in 
New England are unquestionably importations introduced by 
commerce, and some apparently maintain themselves for longer 
or shorter periods only as hangers-on of man. This species 
pursues an independent existence, though often associating with 
him. 
It is known from all the New England States and has been 
taken in every month from May 25 to November 4, and under a 
wide variety of circumstances: from stables, manure-heaps, and 
fungi; flying about in late afternoon, at dusk, and to lights in the 
evening. It has been charged with eating the tender corollas of 
flowers, but it is probably first of all a scavenger and attacks 
flowers from second choice or in the absence of other food. 
Brown Earwig. 
Prolabia arachidis (Yersin). 
Plate 13, figs. 10, 11. 
Forficula arachidis Yersin, Ann. Soc. Ent. France, (3), vol. 8, p. 509, pi. 10> 
f. 33-35 (1860). 
Labia brunnea Scudder, Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv. Terr., vol. 2, p. 257-258 
(1876). 
Labia burgessi Scudder, Psyche, vol. 9, p. 119 (1900) (erroneous identifica- 
tion by Scudder). 
Prolabia arachidis Caudell, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 44, p. 598 (1913). 
Size small. Body broad and plump; dark reddish brown, shin- 
ing with a waxen luster, the abdomen often decidedly chestnut, 
the pronotum, tegmina, and legs yellowish brown, palest on the 
