360 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



but now she never stirred from her young, but kept beat_ 

 ing her wings incessantly with a very rapid motion, evi- 

 dently for the purpose of protecting them from the appre- 

 hended danger a . As far as our knowledge of the eco- 

 nomy of this tribe of insects extends, there is no other 

 species that manifests a similar attachment to^its progeny; 

 but such may probably be discovered by future observers. 

 It is De Geer also that we have to thank for a series 

 of interesting observations on the maternal affection ex- 

 hibited by the common earwig. This curious insect so 

 unjustly traduced by a vulgar prejudice, as if the Crea- 

 tor had willed that the insect world should combine with- 

 in itself examples of all that is most remarkable in every 

 other department of nature, still more nearly approaches 

 the habits of the hen in her care of her family. She ab- 

 solutely sits upon her eggs as if to hatch them a fact 

 which Frisch appears first to have noticed and guards 

 them with the greatest care. De Geer, having found an 

 earwig thus occupied, removed her into a box where 

 was some earth, and scattered the eggs in all directions. 

 She soon, however, collected them one by one with her 

 jaws into a heap, and assiduously sat upon them as be- 

 fore. The young ones, which resemble the parent except 

 in wanting elytra and wings, and, strange to say, are as 

 soon as born larger than the eggs which contained them, 

 immediately upon being hatched creep like a brood of 

 chickens under the belly of the mother, who very quietly 

 suffers them to push between her feet, and will often, as 

 De Geer found, sit over them in this posture for some 

 hours 5 . This remarkable fact I have myself witnessed, 

 having found an earwig under a stone which I accident- 

 * De Geer, iii. 26 >. b De Geer, iii. 548. 



