hy birds of the Common Earwig (Forficula auriciilaria) 177 



die and the females are hibernating. In view of this it is curions 

 that earwigs should be taken as numerously during this period 

 as during the six months when both nymphs and adults can be 

 found easily. The numbers recorded for Rook and Chaffinch are 

 small, though a large number of birds were examined. The Starling 

 is a great insect eater; is it possible that it habitually searches 

 for buried insects during the colder months and devours earwigs 

 found with the rest ? This action may be true for the other two 

 birds also. The figures for all three are certainly curious. 



So we find only 13 species of birds reported as having captured 

 earwigs, and most of them as very sparingly. The Starling is not 

 recorded by Collinge as an earwig eater. 



The above quoted reports certainly suggest that wild birds 

 cannot be relierl upon to diminish earwigs in a garden. Many 

 of the most insectivorous are not reported as feeding upon 

 earwigs at all. They may be distasteful, and a large number 

 together emit a well-defined odour, and the same is true of a 

 number preserved in alcohol. Be this as it may, domestic fowls 

 always eat them readily, a fact which is noted by Jones {op. cit.) 

 in the case of the invasion of Newport, R.I. He also mentions 

 that toads will eat them. 



Miss Maud D. Haviland, Hon. Mem. B.O.U., to whom I am 

 indebted for assistance with regard to the literature of the subject 

 and for kind advice in the preparation of these notes, informs me 

 that she has noticed a Redbreast take earwigs in preference to 

 earthworms. 



ADDENDA. 



Under (b). 

 Mr H. Ling Roth informs me that he has found earwigs very destructive to iris 

 pods, with resulting premature fall of seeds, in a garden at Halifax, Yorks. 



Under (c). 

 Gurney, in "Ornithological Notes from Norfolk for 1916" {British Birds, x. 1917, 

 p. 242j, records that his father in October, 1843, found several earwigs in a Stone 

 Curlew. 



VOL. XIX. PART IV. 



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