EARWIG. 



able. The water at first covered the whole country, 

 particularly at the Little Prairie ; and it must, indeed, 

 Lave been a scene of horror, in these deep forests and 

 iu the gloom of the darkest night, and by wading in 

 the \vater to the middle, to avoid these concussions, 

 which were occurring- every few hours, with a noise 

 equally terrible: to the beasts and birds as to men. 

 Tin? birds themselves lost all power and disposition 

 to fly, and retreated to the bosoms of men, their 

 fellow-sutl'erers in this general convulsion, 



" One result of these terrific phenomena was very 

 obvious. The people of this village had been noted 

 for their profligacy and impiety. In the midst of 

 these scenes of horror, all catholics and protestants, 

 praying and profane became of one religion, and 

 partook of one feeling. Two hundred people, speak- 

 ing English, French, and Spanish, crowded together, 

 their visages pale, the mothers embracing their chil- 

 dren. As soon as the omen that preceded the earth- 

 quakes became, visible, as soon as the air became a 

 little obscured, as though a sudden mist arose from 

 the east, all in their different languages and forms, but 

 all deeply in earnest, betook themselves to the voice 

 of prayer. 



" The people, without exception, were unlettered 

 backwoodsmen, of the class least addicted to reason- 

 ing, and yet it is remarkable how ingeniously and 

 conclusively they reasoned from apprehension sharp- 

 ened by fear. They remarked that the chasms in the 

 earth were in a direction from south-west to north- 

 and they were of an extent to swallow up not 

 only men but houses ' quirk down into the pit.' And 

 these phasing occurred frequently within intervals of 

 half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right 

 angles to the chasms, and stationed themselves upon 

 the felled trees. By this invention all were saved, 

 for the chasms occurred more than once under these 

 felled trees. Meantime their cattle and their harvests, 

 both here and at New Madrid, principally perished. 

 The people no longer dared to dwell in houses ; but. 

 they passed this winter and the succeeding one in 

 bark booths and camps, like those of the Indians, of 

 so light a texture as not to expose the inhabitants to 

 danger, in ea-e of their being thrown down." 



Our space will not admit of any detailed enumera- 

 tion of the early theories for illustrating the cause of 

 earthquakes, and it is of but little consequence, as 

 they are of the most vague and visionary kind. Until 

 very lately, they were supposed to arise from the 

 united action of sulphur and coal in the bowels of the 

 earth ; there is, however, but little doubt that 

 the real cause, holh of earthquakes and volcanoes, 

 may be traced to the blending of large volumes of 

 water with those metals which form the alkaline and 

 earthy bases. These instantly burst into flame, and 

 we well know that no weight, however mighty, or 

 material, however strong, can resist their combined 

 action. Those who have seen a massive iron case, 

 many inches in thickness, burst by the force of a few 

 drops of water converted into steam, will fully com- 

 prehend the elastic force of thousands of gallons acted 

 upon by the most intense combustion of potassium or 

 sodium. 



Both earthquakes and volcanoes tend very mate- 

 rially to purify the atmosphere, and they have gene- 

 rally been found to follow long periods of disease, if 

 not absolute pestilence, and when indeed some such 

 revivifier was absolutely needed. What is still more 

 important, they serve as moral landmarks to show 



how completely we are in the hands of that Provi- 

 dence whose visitations find us as surely on the firm 

 set earth as when we brave the depths of the ocean. 



EARWIG. The ordinary English name of the 

 Forficula auricularia of Linnaeus, an insect so common 

 as to require but little description to render the reader 

 acquainted with it. The body is of an elon-ated 

 form, and is terminated by scaly forceps formed of 

 two long and curved horny appendages, pointed at 

 the tip, and having several small teeth on the inner 

 margin. The wing-covers are short and square, not 

 covering more than one-third of the abdomen ; the 

 wings are of large size, although but seldom seen, 

 being shut up by means of numerous longitudinal and 

 transverse folds, so as to occupy but a very small 

 space. This insect has so much the appearance of 

 some of the Staphylmidce (see BKACHELYTRA), that 

 Linnaeus was induced to place it in the order Colcop- 

 tcra, with which it indeed agrees, in having the wing- 

 covers united (when closed) in a straight line ; the 

 transformations, however, which it undergoes do not 

 agree with those of the beetles, the insect retaining 

 its powers of locomotion, and, consequently, of feeding 

 during the pupa state ; in which respect, as well as in 

 the structure of the mouth, it resembles the grass- 

 hoppers and other orthopterons insect.-. From these, 

 however, it differs so much, that Dr. Leach, M. Leon 

 Dufour, and others, have formed it into a distinct 

 order, whilst Latreille and his followers unite it with 

 the orthoptera, but form it into a distinct section. 

 In this respect, therefore, it will be seen that the 

 despised earwig assumes *a considerable degree of 

 interest, which will riot be lessened when we learn 

 that the generally received opinion that it creeps into 

 the brain of sleeping persons through the ears (an 

 opinion current in most countries, as we learn from 

 the names of perce-oreille given to it by the French, 

 orai-ii'urn by the Germans, and orcn-mctcl by the 

 Dutch) is one of those popular errors which are so 

 difficult to root out. That the ear-wig may on some 

 occasion or other introduce itself into the ear of a 

 person sleeping on the grass or in outhouses, is not 

 more unlikely than that any other insect which resides 

 in holes and crevices in such situations should do the 

 same ; but the structure of the human ear would com- 

 pletely prevent any insect from entering the head, 

 whilst the situation itself would evidently be as uncom- 

 fortable to the insect as it would be to the person 

 annoyed. 



The food of the carw ig consists of vegetable mat- 

 ters. It does much mischief in gardens, devouring 

 not only fruits, but also the petals of flowers ; indeed 

 they are one of the greatest pests to the florist. We 

 have observed that they are especially destructive to 

 the noble flowers of the dahlia, but we are unable to 

 give any more effectual recipe for their destruction 

 than is contained in the following quaint extract from 

 Old Mouffet : " The English women hate them 

 exceedingly, because of the flowers of close ^illi- 

 flowcrs that they eat and spoyl, and they lay snares 

 for them thus : they set in the utmost void places 

 ox-hoofs, hogs'-hoofs, or old cast things that are 

 hollow, upon a staff fastened into the ground, and 

 these are easily stuffed with cloathes or straw : and 

 when by night the savages creep into them to avoid 

 the rain'or hide themselves, on the morning these old 

 cast things being suddenly taken away and shook 

 forth, a great multitude of them fall and are killed with 

 treading upon them." The modern Londoners have 



