LESSER EARWIG. 41 
rounded and minutely punctured, the side margins and hinder margins 
reflexed. The wing-cases (elytra) very finely punctured and truncate 
at the extremity, with the suture impressed towards the apex (see 
figure 1, p. 40). The projecting part of the folded wings more than 
half the length of the wing-cases, and when unfolded of the most 
beautiful transparent texture and great size (see figure 2, p. 40). The 
breast and feet pale. The abdomen reddish brown above, black at the 
sides, pale below; the terminal ventral segment in the male compressed 
at the hinder part in the middle into a sharp point, much prolonged 
between the forceps (see figure 1); the arms of the forceps or tail- 
nippers a little curved, finely serrated along all the inner margin, and 
the apex incurved. Of the female (see figure 2) the nippers are 
triangular straight, and bluntly pointed. 
In my specimens I found some difference in the colour of the upper 
part of the abdomen, one of them being, as described above, red-brown 
with the margins black, and another, as described by Stephens,* with 
the abdomen reddish, black in the middle; but the smaller size of 
this species compared to the other European kinds is a very good guide 
to identification. 
On May 10th Mr. Jas. T. Hutchison, to whom I had been in- 
debted for the Scotch specimens, sent me a further supply, with the 
observation :— 
‘‘They have evidently emanated from the manure used for the 
hot-bed, and do not seem to have made any ravages upon the contents 
of a ‘cold frame’ in pretty close proximity to the hot one.” 
The special love of this ‘“‘ Lesser Earwig” for manure-heaps, as 
well as for moving in great numbers together, seems to have long 
been known as characteristic. 
In 1841,+ John Curtis wrote :—‘‘ There is a small species called 
Labia minor, which seems attached to muck-heaps, and sometimes flies 
in such immense swarms in the sunshine that I was once covered with 
them in an instant.” 
Stephens in his observations on this kind (see previous reference) 
mentions they are “very abundant in the spring throughout the 
metropolitan district, flying about in gardens and near stables, &c., 
especially in the vicinity of dung-heaps.”’ 
Also so long ago as 1826} an observation by Mr. Marsham (a 
well-known entomological writer) is quoted as follows :—Once a little 
before sunset, observing overhead a number of insects on the wing 
moving off in one direction, he caught some of them, and they proved 
* <Tllustrations of British Entomology,’ vol. vi. p. 8. 
+ See ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle’ for 1841, p. 580. 
t See Kirby and Spence’s ‘Introduction to Entomology,’ vol. iv. p. 514 of the 
edition of 1826. 
