EUPLEXOPTERA. — FORFICULID.'E. 405 



deposited (by Forficula auricularia J ) in cavities in the earth, be- 

 neath stones, or in places which tlie parent insect has scooped out. 

 This takes place in the spring and early summer months, soon after 

 which the young are hatched : they are at first very small but active 

 {fig. 50. 14. larva of F. auricularia, 50. 15. one side of its caudal forceps) 

 the antenna? are shorter than in the perfect insect, having only eight,- 

 and subsequently nine, joints* ; whereas there are fourteen in the 

 perfect insect. The head is of a comparatively larger size ; the body is 

 destitute of wings or wing-covers ; and the anal forceps is weak, and 

 rather resembles two long nearly straight styles. De Geer figures 

 them as divaricating ; which is not, as far as I have seen, correct. Its 

 size increases at each shedding of the skin, of which it undergoes 

 several : the wing-covers first make their appearance. In the state 

 ififf- -^O* 16., 50. 17. one side of the caudal forceps) immediately pre- 

 ceding the final moulting, the wings are also present in a rudimental 

 state, and the forceps has almost assumed its final form.. I have seen 

 no pupa, which, I should be led to judge from the larger size and form 

 of the forceps, would produce a male insect. M. Dufour has, how- 

 ever, represented the forceps of a male pupa of F. auricularia (pi. 20. 

 fig. 8.) as villose, in which the basal part is broad and toothed, and 

 the terminal part strong, and incurved. In some pupae which I possess, 

 and which would, I presume, produce female insects (judging from 

 female earwigs which I possess, which have died in the act of dis- 

 engaging themselves from the pupa skin, in which they remain par- 

 tially enveloped) ; the antennae are 12-jointed ; the mesothorax is 

 nearly transverse, the wing-covers occupying its thickened sides ; but 

 scarcely extending beyond the posterior margin of the segment ; and 

 the metathorax is furnished with two rudimental wings, which extend 

 to a considerable distance over the base of the abdomen, the radiating 

 nervures being clearly discernible through the skin with which they 

 are clothed ; thus showing that the wings are expanded, and not 

 folded up in this state. I have not observed whether the distinctions 

 described as indicating the sexes externally are manifested in these 



* In General Ilardwicke's collection of drawings of Indian objects of natural his- 

 tory, now in the Britisli Museum, is contained a highly magnified figure of a larva, 

 with the thoracic segments elongated ; the femora very broad; and the antenna' 

 about four times the entire length of the body, and midti-articuiate. I presume this 

 is the larva of the Forficula figured in the following idate, which lias also the an- 

 tenna multi-articulate, I)ut mucli shorter, and the femora broad and flat. 



