266 INSECTS AND MAN 



habit of entering the human ear and causing serious damage. 

 Its scientific name was given to it because of the remark- 

 able resemblance of the insect's expanded wing to the 

 human ear, but it is hardly likely that the popular name 

 has been bestowed upon it on this account, for it is exceed- 

 ingly rare to see an earwig in flight, and so intricate is 

 the method of folding its wings that it is a difficult 

 operation to unfold them by hand. The pincers of this 

 insect are curious appendages and their use is unknown ; 

 by some entomologists it is said that they are used in 

 folding the wings, this may be so, but it is curious that 

 the wingless species are also provided with pincers. By 

 others they are considered to be weapons of defence, and 

 this is probably a correct surmise, though they are only 

 capable of giving a most feeble nip. 



The yellowish, oval eggs are deposited in some hiding- 

 place, such as below a stone, and the mother is said to 

 evince considerable solicitude for their welfare. The most 

 extraordinary tales have been told with regard to this 

 supposed trait on the part of these insects ; in real truth, 

 though they are so common their life-history is but little 

 known. The young are white when first hatched, and, 

 as in other Orthoptera, their metamorphosis is incomplete 

 and they reach maturity by a series of moults, becoming 

 light coloured with each change of skin and growing 

 darker and darker as the next moult approaches. 



With regard to the earwig's food : most gardeners 

 would assert that the insect is destructive to cultivated 

 plants. Careful observation and experiment, however, 

 show that it is carnivorous and that it devours caterpillars, 

 snails, slugs, etc. It shuns the light on every occasion, and 

 its habit of hiding in such flowers as the sunflower and 

 dahlia have earned it an undeserved reputation for evil. 



Of the house-frequenting Hymenoptera, the most usually 

 encountered are the common wasp, Vespa vulgaris, the 

 German wasp, Vespa germanica (the latter is at times 



