82 EARWIGS. 



appearance, and Mr. Martin J. Sutton, writing to me on 

 Sept. 27th, from Dyson's Wood, Kidmore, near Reading, 

 remarked that he thought, "if possible, the plague at Dyson's 

 Wood was even worse than that described by ' The Field ' 

 correspondent." 



Looking at the above notes, it seems very unlikely that 

 swarms of Earwigs should have arrived otherwise than on 

 their wings, which are so eminently calculated to convey 

 them ; but rather that this species being nocturnal, its move- 

 ments are not fully recorded. 



The life-history of the Earwig may be shortly given as 

 follows : — Early in the year the female Earwig lays (under 

 stones, or in a hole in the ground, or amongst dry leaves, or 

 the like places, but always in some concealed spot) a little 

 collection of from fifteen to twenty yellowish eggs, by which 

 she remains, or sits upon them, and collects them together 

 again if scattered abroad.* 



After the lapse of about a month the young Earwigs hatch ; 

 but still for a while the mother Earwig remains b}^ her white 

 wingless progeny, "like a hen by her chickens." The young, 

 which soon become brown, are very like the full-grown insects 

 in shape, excepting that for some time they have neither 

 wings nor wing-cases ; after several moults, the shape of the 

 wings bIiows, and at the last moult, which is towards the end 

 of August, the Earwig takes its perfect condition of male or 

 female, with wings and all j^arts complete. 



Earwigs are well known by their narrow long shape, with 

 the tail ending in a pair of forceps (see figures, p. 80). 

 Forficida auricularia, our commonest kind, is distinguishable 

 in the males (see figure 1, p. 80) by the forceps being semi- 

 circularly curved, and with the tips meeting, and a tooth 

 within at the base f ; in the female they are nearly straight. 

 The colour is mostly of a dark red brown ; the head reddish ; 

 eyes black ; the shield-like portion behind the head very dark 

 or black, with pale borders ; behind this are the wing-cases 

 (for position in repose, see figure 2, p. 80). These are placed 

 flat, are very short, and meet at a straight line running along 

 the middle, and are of a pale red or yellowish brown colour ; 

 a small triangular pale mark projecting from beneath each 

 wing-case shows the tip of the " tightly-folded" wing beneath, 



* For notes of personal observation of this singular habit, see ' Memoires ' 

 of De Geer, vol. iii. p. 548; also of his own observation of it by Dr. E. L. 

 Taschenberg in his ' Praktische Insektenkunde,' pt. iv. p. 188. 



t In the ' Ortopteros de Espana y Portugal,' por Ignacio Bolivar, p. 29, is 

 the observation tliat "this species presents some variations, of which the 

 differences are chiefly based on the form of the pincers of the male, which may 

 be long and little curved — var. macrolahia ; or short, circumscribing a circular 

 space — var. cyclolabia.^' 



