NEUROPTERA. 51 



Earwigs are especially hated by gardeners, whose car- 

 nations and dahlias they are fond of nibbling. Earwig 

 traps may be made by taking a number of hollow tubes, 

 five or six inches long, and about half an inch in diameter, 

 such as old specimens of the bamboo-cane, elder branches, 

 or cow-parsley stems, and plugging up the top end, the 

 tube being hung with open end downwards. It is the 

 nature of earwigs to crawl for shelter into any little snug 

 recess, and these tubes are tempting decoys for them. 

 There are other kinds of British earwigs, one genus of which 

 i^Apterycjla) is wingless, though the elytra, or wing-cases, 

 . are present. All these are of a small size. A very large but 

 rare species, the Giant Earwig {Lahidura gigantea) has 

 sometimes been found here and there on our coasts, but 

 "to the great grief of naturalists, and to the great 

 honour of Providence," as some one remarked, it is very 

 rarely found. 



NEUROPTERA. 



We now come to an Order of Insects, many ex- 

 tremely beautiful, and none in any way injurious 

 to the crops of the garden and farm. It is not 

 too much to say that there is not a single British 

 species in this order that is at all injurious to 

 vegetation. True, the larva of the large Dragon-flies 

 may destroy the young fry of the trout now and then, 

 but with this exception these insects do no harm. On 

 the contrary, some of these insects are productive of 

 much good by destroying and eating numerous other 

 smaller insects hurtful to the garden or farm. 



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