COMMON EARWIG. 71 
In reply to my letter with some suggestions Mr. Chittenden wrote, 
on July 6th, as follows :— 
“‘T am catching the Earwigs in tin-pots put over the Hop-hills; 
also I employ four men from nine in the evening to the small hours, 
two carrying a platform covered with tar, and two shaking the strigs 
and poles. I find Iam getting rid of numberless Karwigs. I mean 
to persevere with this for the next ten days.”—(A. C.) 
A plan of much the same nature was used with excellent success 
for clearing the Cuckoo or Frog Flies, or Jumpers (Huacanthus inter- 
ruptus), some years ago, from Hops near Alton, Hants. These flies 
have long hinder legs, with which they take tremendous leaps, and 
the plan used was to have two trays about six feet long by two feet 
six inches wide made of corrugated iron, turned up with a three-inch 
rim, and with a handle at each end. These trays were well smeared 
with tar (which the rim prevented from running off), and placed one 
on each side of the hill, and on the Hop-poles being shaken, the 
‘«‘ Jumpers,” taking their extraordinary leaps, fell into the tarred trays, 
and were at once thus destroyed without further trouble. Other ways, 
such as using strips of cloth or bagging well tarred, were tried, and in 
all cases answered well, and might be expected to answer as well for 
HKarwigs. 
On July 11th Mr. Edw. Gordon, of Canon Court, Wateringbury, 
near Maidstone, wrote me of Earwigs being present in ‘almost every 
Hop-garden”’ in the district; but for the most part not to a really 
serious extent. Mr. Gordon remarked :— 
‘‘ Almost every Hop-garden in this neighbourhood shows some 
damage from this pest, but in no case have I seen it sufficiently severe 
to cause much uneasiness. In my own gardens I have found a few 
hills badly attacked, and have killed the Harwigs in the cracks of the 
poles with a knife, but this would be a tedious process on a large 
seale.”—(E. G.) 
But though destroying the creatures one by one would certainly be 
an expensive process, still Mr. Gordon’s note of the Earwigs being in 
the cracks of the poles, and the note (p. 70) of the Harwigs being 
‘‘ swarming in the crevices of the poles,” might perhaps be utilized to 
making these cracks and crevices undesirable to them. 
The following note refers to Harwigs as destructive to field crops, 
especially Turnips and Swedes. On July 8th Mr. Edgecumbe Parsons, 
writing from Coates, Cirencester, asked for information as to the 
habits of Harwigs, ‘‘of which this year we have immense numbers. 
They are clearing off Swedes and Turnips wholesale, and even attack 
Potato-tops.”’ 
In the course of further communication regarding the Harwigs, 
Mr. KE. Parsons observed :— 
