36 



monly enough near Christchurch in Hants, in the New Forest, and 

 once or twice in St. Margaret's Bay, where I have sought it in vain. 

 The great meridional D. albifrons (Fabr.) has been taken as a 

 straggler at Ramsgate. 



In the Gryllodea we begin by renouncing our claims to CEcanthus 

 pellucens (Scop.) as a British insect. The domestic field and mole 

 crickets are doubtless familiar to you all, but probably the little 

 wood cricket, Nemobius sylvestris, less so. It frequents leafy banks 

 in woods, but in this country I have never heard of its capture 

 outside the New Forest. 



Having thus reviewed our British Orthoptera at some length, let us 

 turn our attention to exotic species. 



Of all the groups the least known are the Forficularia. It is a 

 strange thing how all entomologists, orthopterists included, have 

 fought shy of these interesting creatures. Brunner, de Saussure, 

 Karsch, Bolivar, Scudder, and others have all described a few, but 

 have all soon given up, leaving de Bormans a monopoly of the sub- 

 ject. To such an extent has this occurred, that in Bolivar's faunistic 

 papers the earwigs are worked out and described by de Bormans. 

 Similarly, although he possesses an excellent collection of Forficu- 

 laria, Brunner never works at them himself, and all his specimens are 

 sent to de Bormans for determination. The first systematic work on 

 the group came from the pen of H. Dohrn, appearing during several 

 years in the " Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung " in the early sixties. 

 Since then Scudder has critically examined the generic names, and 

 de Bormans and Kirby have drawn up tables of the genera. But at 

 present the study of the group is very difficult, as the literature con- 

 sists solely of a large number of papers and articles, all of which are 

 necessary for the student. At last de Bormans has put together the 

 results of many years' patient labour, and his monograph may be ex- 

 pected to appear during the summer. 



Of the habits, haunts, life- history, and bionomics generally of ear- 

 wigs but little is known. The observations of Mr. Green on the 

 larvae of Diplatys are of immense importance, and show the 

 connection between Forficularia and Thysanura. There remains a 

 field of work hitherto barely touched for any student who will give 

 attention to the variation and habits of earwigs, especially in tropical 

 countries. 



Although so numerous with us, earwigs seem to be rare insects 

 abroad ; they are very seldom brought over by collectors, and when 

 they are brought over they are usually in bad condition. The result 

 is that the systematist has great difficulty in collecting material, which 

 at the best is usually meagre and broken. 



Of the manner in which earwigs vary our knowledge is vague. One 

 common form of variation is in the colour of the pronotum, which 

 may be indifferently red or black in one species. I have a variety of 

 Opisthocosmia forcipata, de Haan, in which the head is clear red 

 instead of black. Labidura riparia (Pall) varies to an extraordinary 



