118 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



Ear-wigs (Forficula). 



The COMMON EAR-WIG (Forficula auricularia) is about one 

 inch long, and has yellowish legs and a brown body. Its 

 upper wings are very short, but the under ones are as long 

 as the whole body, and will expand like those of a butterfly, 

 making it seem almost impossible that they can be so folded 

 up as to have room enough under their short wing-covers. 



These little animals present one very extraordinary phe- 

 nomenon among insects ; they are not only oviparous, but 

 they bring forth their young by incubation ; and during the 

 month of April the females may always be found under 

 stones, sitting upon their eggs like a hen. The young arc 

 hatched like chickens, and in the month of June may be 

 found with their mother, resembling her entirely, with ex- 

 ception of the wings. 



It has long been a prevalent popular superstition that 

 the Ear-wig creeps through the ear into the brain of sleep- 

 ing persons, and thus occasions their death. But an in- 

 stance of the kind has never come to light, and we can eas- 

 ily believe it impossible, as their jaws and abdominal pinch- 

 ers are not strong enough to admit of their doing any such 

 injury. They are, however, justly persecuted and destroy- 

 ed by gardeners, because they make holes in ripe fruit, as 

 peaches, apricots, pears, and prunes, and feed on them. 

 They are also very prone to conceal themselves in pink 

 flowers and dahlias, when in full bloom, and spoil them. 

 On this account, gardeners often suspend lobster-shells, 

 reeds, etc., on these plants, that the Ear- wigs may conceal 

 themselves in them instead of the flower?. 



The Soothsayers (Mantis). 



The SOOTHSAYERS are distinguished by an unusually 

 long, flat hind body, a perpendicularly-erected long neck- 

 like thorax, short, horizontally-folded, generally green, or 



