122 FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



In the midst of all these vindications, shall the 

 harmless, unnecessary earwig go unvindicated from 

 the aspersions that too often assail his character ? 

 A thousand times, no ! Because he is small, he 

 shall not be insulted with impunity. I see a help- 

 less animal unduly exposed to vile detractions, and 

 openly pursued with undeserved asperity. The 

 sight arouses all the latent chivalry of my nature. 

 I will gird on my sword to do battle for the right, 

 and rush in, a scientific St. George, in defence of 

 the innocent but persecuted earwig. 



That my hero (or heroine) has a bad name in 

 the world I am not careful to deny. Calumny has 

 dogged it from its earliest days. Its very name 

 enshrines a myth which is in itself a libel. It is 

 called earwig, gossips will tell you, because it creeps 

 into the ears of incautious sleepers in the open air, 

 and so worms its way to the brain, where, if you will 

 believe the purveyors of folk-lore natural history, 

 it grows to a gigantic size, " as big as a goose's 

 egg," and finally kills its unhappy victim. It is 

 true, science knows nothing of this form of brain- 

 disease ; it has tried the case before an impartial 

 tribunal, and the earwig has left the court without 

 a stain on its character. Some etymologists have 

 even endeavoured to persuade us that the name 

 earwig itself is but a corruption of ear-wing, a 

 word which they suppose to be derived from the 

 shape of its flying organs. There, however, our 

 philologists are surely crediting the people with 

 more knowledge than they possess ; very few gar- 

 deners or countrymen are aware that earwigs have 



