74 EARWIGS. 
own elasticity keeps it from falling out whilst the pot is being turned 
wrong way up; and each morning the hay should be examined, or 
shaken out over a gravel walk, or broad board, or some hard smooth 
surface, so that the Earwigs which fall down, and would, if allowed, 
run away quickly, may be killed before they can escape. The pots can 
be examined and the Earwigs killed very rapidly ; and at the rate of 
from five to twenty-five Earwigs a morning (see p. 70) a very useful 
clearance made. Taking the average at fifteen, this from the three 
hundred pots mentioned would give four thousand five hundred of the 
pests got rid of daily, which must be a relief to the plants. 
In a bad attack of Earwigs on an experimental plantation of 
Tobacco tried by the late Mr. Faunce de Laune, at Sharsted Court, 
near Sittingbourne, in 1886, the following note was sent me regarding 
the plans being tried to catch the Karwigs :— 
‘« We have several plans of catching these insects. . . . The 
plan I have found to answer best is by hanging old bags on gates near 
the Tobacco, or on stakes amongst the plants; old felt hats also catch 
a tremendous quantity by placing them on the top of stakes, and 
clearing them out daily.”—(A. R.) 
Another plan of trapping, which is found to answer well for field 
service in Germany, is to leave old field weed baskets standing (pre- 
sumably wrong way up) in one place for a day or two. When these 
are jarred smartly on the ground in the morning, even on a smooth 
clear piece of ground, it is stated that such numbers of Karwigs fall 
out, that it is difficult to trample on them all before some of them 
escape. In such a case, shaking them out on to a tarred board would 
be an effectual stop to their getting away. 
Another German plan is to lay little bundles of Bean- or Cabbage- 
stalks, or any kind of stems which Earwigs will frequent, about the 
infested field or garden bed, and clear these from time to time. In 
1886, which was a year very remarkable for prevalence of Harwigs, 
one of my correspondents sent me the following note :— 
‘‘Small heaps of straw laid at short intervals and fired in a still 
evening, after a few days, will destroy immense quantities of Harwigs 
and beetles.””—(R. W.) 
The plan mentioned at p. 70 with regard to clearing Hop plants of 
the infestation is a well proved one, and one that can be used on a 
large scale, and might be serviceably applied also where Harwigs are 
found to be damaging blossom or young leafage of Apple or other 
standard or espalier fruit trees. 
What the reason of the occasional very great appearance of Har- 
wigs may be in cases where, as in Mangold or Turnip fields, the 
ground has been thoroughly well turned and stirred, is quite unknown 
to me; the only thing that occurs to me as perhaps the cause, is the 
