COMMON EARWIG. 73 
p. 69) by the forceps being semicircularly curved, and with the tips 
meeting, and a tooth within at the base; 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 fig. 2, p. 69%). 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, from which this order takes its name of 
Kuplexoptera, or “ tightly folded wings.’ At figures 1 and 3, p. 69, 
the great size of the delicate membranous fan-shaped wing when 
expanded, as compared with that of its little scale-like cover, is given 
much magnified. The abdomen is mostly dark red or rusty black; 
legs very pale. The length is from about half an inch to upwards of 
three-quarters; and though by very far most numerous in summer and 
autumn, these Harwigs may be found during the whole of the year. 
Their feeding-time is at night, and they shelter themselves from 
light by day. This may be under stones, or tiles, or bits of wood, or 
rough slabs or pieces of timber, or amongst withered leaves, or in 
badly pointed or ruinous walls. They are also to be found in great 
numbers in such shelter as is afforded them on their food-plants, as 
amongst the petals of Dahlias and Carnations, in the dried and curled 
leaves of Hops, or of Apple trees, or on wall fruit-trees, squeezed in 
between the nectarine or other fruit that they may have been ravaging 
and the wall, or, again, sheltering beneath fallen and half decayed 
fruit on the ground. It is impossible to enumerate the variety of 
their hiding-places out of doors, from the broadscale shelter of a 
haystack to the chinks in a Hop-pole; and indoors, in bad Harwig 
years, beds, boots, pastry, bread, anything which affords dark shelter, 
especially if it unites the convenience of food with it, may serve 
as a hiding-place. 
PREVENTION AND Remepies.—The most convenient plan for garden 
purposes is the long known method of trapping by putting a little 
bunch of hay or straw in the bottom of a moderate-sized or rather 
small flower-pot, and then setting the pot wrong way up on the top of 
a stake to which the infested plant (as a Dahlia, for instance) is 
fastened. If the hay is well pressed into the bottom of the pot, its 
* Figure 2, p. 69, is after the figure of I’. forcipata, by Prof. Westwood, 
plate xxviii. of Stephen’s ‘Ill. Brit. Ent. (Mandibulata),’ a larger and less common 
kind than F. auricularia, but very like it in general appearance. The wing, figure 3, 
is from p.151 of the truly useful volume ‘Our Household Insects,’ by Mr. Edw. 
A. Butler. (Longmans, Green & Co.) 
