BROODING EARWIGS. 303 



This love of offspring does not seem the most strongly 

 developed in the mild and gentle of the insect tribes, but in 

 those, especially, of fierce and predatory habits, as the cruel 

 spider, the devouring water-scorpion, the already-noticed 

 murderous wasp, and the, occasionally, cannibal earwig. 



It might not so much excite our wonder to find the large 

 feathery wings of the soft and beautiful butterfly, or those of 

 the downy moth, spread, dove-like, over their eggs or infant 

 broods, to hatch or cherish them. These, indeed, are not 

 without their maternal instincts wonderfully displayed. The 

 butterfly deserts her delicate repast among the flowers to de- 

 posit her eggs on the (to herself) uninviting cabbage, which is 

 to support her progeny ; and the moth, in one or more in- 

 stances, 1 strips the down from her own body to defend her 

 brood against the winter's cold j but if we want a parallel to 

 the patience, the care, and affection of a brooding hen, we must 

 look for it in the harsh, sharp, linear form of the earwig. De 

 Geer tells us (his observations being confirmed by later 

 naturalists) that she absolutely sits upon her eggs, as if to 

 hatch them, and guards them with the greatest care ; if scat- 

 tered, collects them one by one into a heap, then resumes and 

 assiduously maintains her sitting. When hatched, her nest- 

 lings, like those of a hen, creep under her, and are thus some- 

 times brooded for hours by the mother insect. 2 



We have had an opportunity of observing for ourselves the 

 brooding care of these insect Partlets, as exemplified in one 

 which we transported from her nest beside a stone, and com- 

 mitted, with half a dozen of her white progeny, to the keeping 

 of an inverted glass. Knowing that, in spite of an occasional 

 penchant for a living subject, the usual food of earwigs con- 

 sists of flowers, we put a blossom of dandelion into our pri- 

 soner's coop of crystal a piece of consideration for which we 

 were amply repaid by seeing Mother Earwig commence, forth- 



1 That of the Gipsy Moth ; also the Gold-tail. 2 See Vignette. 



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