338 Mr Brindley, Notes on the Breeding 
high temperature and other special features of life in confinement — 
may have rendered the eggs incapable of development. We do not — 
know the usual month for oviposition or how long is the period 
of immaturity in the Scilly Islands, apparently these facts are not 
established on extensive evidence for any country. A brief review 
of the published statements in this connection was attempted in 
my previous paper. In the neighbourhood of Cambridge it is 
likely that oviposition takes place in March or April, that the eggs — 
hatch in May, and that the offspring become adult in July or 
August. There is little doubt that the appearance of eggs as 
early as January is premature for even so temperate a climate as — 
that of the Scilly Islands, especially when it is borne in mind that 
a fair number of nymphs are found there in the latter half of 
August. That laboratory conditions encourage premature oviposi- 
tion is well known for more than one order of insects. Many of 
the earwigs brought to Cambridge from the Farn Islands began to 
lay about the middle of October. The same acceleration is well 
shown by the further history of case 7 in the above table. The 
male and the five females, which became adult between June 17 
and July 4, were placed together in a large dish on coconut 
fibre and supplied with green food as well as potatoes. On 
November 4, 13 young were found, apparently in the first instar. 
The eggs were not observed, so it is uncertain if the offspring of 
one or of more of the females was found, for all the latter were living 
and apparently healthy on this day. The young were isolated and — 
four at least were alive and active on December 21—there is no 
doubt that some had died. Thus these grand-children of a female 
brought from Round Island in September 1912 were hatched 
probably seven or eight months earlier than the third generation 
would be in a wild state. A batch of living adults was procured 
from New Grimsby, Tresco, early in October 1913, and about 
44 females were isolated on coconut fibre in flower pots. On 
October 28 a batch of eggs was found. So far these have not 
hatched. 
Survival of males through the winter. 
In my previous paper (p. 678) the doubt as to what extent this 
occurs under normal circumstances was alluded to. In the subse- 
quent experiments the point has not been examined in detail, 
partly because a large number of the males have been killed and 
preserved for measurements of the forceps, and partly because the 
artificial conditions of a laboratory militate against a satisfactory 
conclusion, 
