COMMON EARWIG. 81 



whicli are often entirely pierced through in warm weather. 

 Earwigs also attack the other sorts of fruit, particularly Pears 

 and Apples." 



Kaltenbach (in his ' Pflanzenfeinde ') notices of this same 

 species that " the}^ feed by preference on mellow and sweet 

 fruit, which they often completely eat through, and do not 

 despise soft leaves and petals of flowers, and destroy many 

 caterpillars and pup^e." 



Taschenberg (' Praktische Insektenkunde,' pt. iv.) mentions 

 a little more in detail that " its food consists mainly of 

 vegetable material, as, for instance, of ripe fruit, when it is 

 sweet, and more especially what is lying on the ground, or at 

 any rate is on boughs which are near a wall"; but Dr. 

 Taschenberg does not consider that the Earwigs climb the 

 trees ; and in the year 1896, which (as well as 1886) was a 

 year in which Earwig attack was unusually prevalent, I had 

 a note from a correspondent near Gloucester, in which he 

 mentioned: — " My Apple trees are z«/t's^6'(Z with Earwigs. I 

 do not know whether these insects consume any of the 

 aphides ; if they do, I should hesitate to destroy them. I am 

 under the impression they eat the Apple flowers. I fear they 

 do not interfere with any caterpillar life." — (A. B.) 



It would help us very much in keeping Earwig visitation in 

 check if we had some special observations as to how they 

 arrive at the infested spots, with identification of the kind 

 observed. We know that the "Lesser Earwig" {Labia viinor, 

 Leach), which is the smallest of all the European kinds, will 

 fly in great swarms in sunshine, but, unless from their capa- 

 bility of clearing off young plants in frames, this small kind 

 does not appear to be mischievous.* Also, in proof of some 

 kinds of Earwigs flying at niglit, it was noted by Prof. West- 

 wood "that in a small space of eighteen inches square, upon 

 palings fresh coated with pitch on the previous day, no less 

 than fifty or more of these insects had been captured, some of 

 which had still their wings expanded."! 



In a note published in ' The Field ' on Sept. 25fh, 1886, 

 the year of the very worst prevalence of Earwig attack which 

 has been recorded probably within memory, the correspondent 

 remarked that (after various investigations mentioned, and 

 killing as many as eleven hundred of the swarm on the walls 

 by the light of a lantern) he then took the lantern to a Privet 

 hedge of about seventy yards in length then in flower, and 

 found " as many Earwigs as flowers." This, it will be re- 

 membered, was a year of most extraordinary amount of 



* For some observations of habits of L. minor, see my ' Twenty-first Annual 

 Beport of Injurious Insects.' — (E. A. O.) 



t ' Introduction to Classification of Insects,' vol. i. p. 403. 



G 



