304 SUMMER 



wings of a fly in murderous greed rather than for handmaids 

 insuring the future of the race under the instinct of duty. 



Many nightflying insects are, as it were, secretive of their 

 power of flight, and parsimonious of it. They keep it in 

 reserve for use at moments so rare that many people never 

 discover that the crawling creature possesses such a member 

 at all. More than this, some of the creatures that have the 

 loveliest and the neatest wings affect for the better part of 

 their short life a gait, a mode of motion, that almost suggests 

 the curse on the serpent. In spite of its legs the earwig 

 looks almost like a little worm, that should live better on the 

 ground or under it during the whole of its life. How many 

 countrymen who would regard the earwig as one of the 

 most familiar of insects have never even suspected the pre- 

 sence of its wings, though they are visible even when folded 

 along the back and half hidden under the case, which is itself 

 a rudimentary wing. 



But now and again on late summer evenings you may 

 see quite a host of earwigs abroad on the wing, and at such 

 times they will appear in upstair rooms in numbers which 

 suggest a mystery to those who have looked on the earwig 

 as a groundling. It is hard to see why animals possessed of 

 such beautiful and effective planes should use them so 

 seldom, but flight in this species, as in some of the ants, is 

 peculiarly associated with the marriage ceremony ; and only 

 at the breeding season do we see earwigs in any number on 

 the wing. Both male and female use them at other times, 

 but it is seldom ; and most of their migrations are made by 

 that ' fussy wriggle ' which suggests the serpent tribe. They 

 sacrifice their wings by disuse. 



It is only in the final stage, when maturity is reached, 

 that the wings are fully developed, for the earwig drags out 

 during the days of its active life that metamorphosis which 



