AJFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 359 



her immediate flight ; but now she never stirred from 

 her young, but kept beating her wings incessantly with 

 a very rapid motion, evidently for the purpose of pro- 

 tecting them from the apprehended danger*. — As far 

 as our knowledge of the economy of this tribe of insects 

 extends, there is no other species that manifests a simi- 

 lar attachment to its progeny; but sucli may probably 

 be discovered by future observers. 



It is De Geer also that we have to thank for a series 

 of interesting observations on the maternal affection 

 exhibited by the common earwig. This curious insect 

 so unjustly traduced by a vulgar prejudice, — as if the 

 Creator had willed that the insect world should com- 

 bine within itself examples of all that is most remarks 

 able in every other department of nature, — still more 

 nearly approaches the habits of the hen in her care of 

 her family. She absolutely sits upon her eggs as if to 

 hatch them — a fact which Frisch appears first to have 

 noticed — and guards them with the greatest care. De 

 Geer, having found an earwig thus occupied, removed 

 her into a box Avliere was some earth, and scattered the 

 eggs in all directions. She soon, however, collected 

 them one by one with her jaws into a heap, and assidu- 

 ously sat upon them as before. The young ones, which 

 resemble the parent except in wanting elytra and wings, 

 and, strange to say, are as soon as born larger than the 

 eggs which contained them, immediately upon being 

 hatched creep like a brood of chickens under the belly 

 of the mother, who very quietly suffers them to push 

 between her feet, and will often, as De Geer found, sit 

 over them in this posture for some hours''. This re- 



" De Geer, iii. '262. " Ibid, iii, 548, 



