252 ORTHOPTEKA. 



in two weeks, but it is stated that tliey take a niontli to 

 incubate. The female looks after the young for some little 

 time like a lien after her chicks. The young are at first 

 white, but become brown in a week, and have no signs of 

 wings, but by degrees after several moults the wings appear, 

 the common earwig becoming mature in July and August. 

 They al-e mostly dark chestnut - brown in colour, with dark 

 eyes. The upper wings are very small, but the under pair are 

 large, fan-shaped, membranous expansions, folded up in a most 

 remarkable way beneath the small scale-hke upper ones. This 

 species seldom uses its wings, although I have taken them on 

 the wing.-' The small Earwigs (Labia minor), on the other hand, 

 fly about in the sunshine. Forficula aurieularia feeds only of 

 a night, and hides away beneath the earth and stones during 

 the daytime and under the bark of trees, &c. They strip the 

 leaves of plants, and in the last few years have done much 

 damage to hops of a night. 



Prevention and Remedies. — Trapping is the best way to get 

 rid of these pests. Heaps of straw put about in the hop- 

 gardens and fields, and burnt in the daytime, will get rid of 

 hundreds. Pieces of sacking laid about on the ground wiU be 

 found to entice great numbers. In Germany old baskets are 

 put up on sticks full of some rubbish to attract the earwigs, 

 and then destroyed. During an attack on the South-Eastern 

 Agricultural College hops in 1896, soot placed round the 

 hills was found most efficacious, driving the pests away and 

 enabling the hops to recover from their damage. Catching 

 over tarred boards of a night is also an excellent way in hop 

 infestation. 



Cockroaches (Blattid^). 



The so-called " Black-beetles " have been steadily increasing 

 in England in recent years, and are often destructive out-of- 

 doors as well as indoors. The three commonest species are 



' Ento. Mo. Mag., p. 61, 1896. 



