NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Discoveries by M. de Geer. 



slone a female earwig, accompanied by many 

 little insects, which evidently appeared to be her 

 own young. They continued close to her and 

 often placed themselves under her belly as 

 chickens do under a hen. He put the whole 

 into a box of fresh earth : they did not enter the 

 earth, but it was pleasing to observe how they 

 thrust themselves under the belly, and between 

 the legs of the mother, who remained very quiet, 

 and suffered them to continue there sometimes 

 for an hour or two together. To feed them, this 

 gentleman gave them a piece of a very ripe ap- 

 ple; in an instant the old one ran upon it, and 

 ate with a good appetite; the young ones also 

 seemed to eat a little, but apparently with much 

 less relish. In a week's time he remarked that 

 the young earwigs had changed their skins, and 

 he found also the sloughs that they had quitted. 

 This moulting produced only a slight change in 

 their figure, yet it evidently brought them nearer 

 to the perfect insect. 



The same gentleman found, at another time, 

 a female earwig under some stones, placed over 

 a heap qf eggs, of which she took all the care 

 imaginable without ever forsaking them, tie 

 look both the female and her eggs, placed her in 

 a box half filled with fresh earth, and dispersed 

 the eggs up and down in it. t-he however, 

 soon removed them, one after another, carrying 

 them between her jaws, and, at the end of a few 

 , he saw thai ,he had collected them all into 



