144 OETHOPTEKA. 



3. Walkers QOrtkoptera ambulatoria), like the spectres 

 or walking-sticks, having weak and slender legs, which do 

 not admit of rapid motion ; and 



4. Jumpers ( Orthoptera saltatoria), such as crickets, grass- 

 hoppers, and locusts, in which the thighs of the hind legs are 

 much larger than the others, and are filled and moved with 

 powerful muscles, which enable these insects to leap with 

 facility. 



I. RUNNERS. ( Orthoptera Cursoria.) 



In English works on gardening, earwigs are reckoned 

 among obnoxious insects, various remedies are suggested to 

 banish them firom the garden, and even traps and other 

 devices are described for capturing and destroying them. 

 They have a rather long and somewhat flattened body, 

 which is armed at the hinder end with a pair of slender 

 sharp-pointed blades, opening and shutting horizontally like 

 scissors, or like a pair of nippers, which suggested the name 

 of Forficula, literally little nippers, applied to them by scien- 

 tific writers. Although no well authenticated instances are 

 on record of their entering the human ear, yet, during the 

 daytime, they creep into all kinds of crevices for the sake 

 of concealment, and come out to feed chiefly by night. It 

 is common with English gardeners to hang up, among the 

 flowers and fruit-trees subject to their attacks, pieces of hol- 

 low reeds, lobster claws, and the like, which offer enticing 

 places of retreat for these insects on the approach of daylight, 

 and by means thereof great numbers of them are obtained 

 in the morning. The little creeping animal, with numerous 

 legs, commonly but erroneously called earwig in America, is 

 not an insect ; but of the true earwig we have several species, 

 though' they are by no means common, and certainly never 

 appear in such numbers as to prove seriously injurious to 

 vegetation. Nevertheless, it seemed well to give to this kind 

 of insect a passing notice in its proper place among the 

 Orthoptera, were it only for its notoriety in other countries. 



