1876.] 287 [Scudder. 



Both males and females presented a wide range of variation in the 

 characters of the shell, some of them showing very distinctly the 

 oblique folds so characteristic of the species, while in others these 

 folds were scarcely visible. The shell of the male is smoother than 

 that of the female, and is also more slender and more delicate. The 

 figures represent normal males and females from this peculiar 

 colony. 



Critical and Historical Notes on Forficularle ; includ- 

 ing Descriptions of new Generic Forms and an Alpha- 

 betical Synonymic List of the Described Specie^. By 

 Samuel H. Scudder. 



In the tenth edition of his Systema Naturse, Linne placed the two 

 common species of European earwigs (auricularia and minor') in the 

 genus Forficula, among the Coleoptera. Fabricius, in all his works, 

 placed this genus at the head of his Ulonata (= Dermaptera DeGeer, 

 Orthoptera auct.) following close upon the Coleoptera. Latreille, in 

 1796, was the first to recognize the wider separation of the earwigs 

 from the other Dermaptera, and divided the whole order into three 

 (unnamed) sections; of which the earwigs formed the first, Blatta 

 the second, and the remaining Dermaptera the third. Dumeril, in 

 his Zoologie analytique C1806), recognizing the family value of the 

 group, called it Labidoures — a name which, from its gallic dress, has 

 no more claim upon our attention than perce-oreille. Kirby 1 subse- 

 quently maintained the ordinal character of the group, and gave it 

 the name Dermaptera, in which he was followed in 1815 by Leach. 

 But neither can this name be retained, since it was given by DeGeer 

 in 17 73 to the whole suborder afterward called Ulonata by Fabricius 

 (1775), and — excluding the earwigs — Orthopteres by Olivier (1789). 2 

 Moreover, Latreille, recognizing it in its true character as a family 

 of Dermaptera, had already 3 given the group the name of Forfic- 

 ularivE, and this name must be retained. After tabulating the 



1 Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., xi, 87 note (1813). 



2 By a strange oversight or neglect, the work of the distinguished Swedish natu- 

 ralist, who first separated these insects froni the Hemiptera of his fellow country- 

 man Linne, has been very generally overlooked, and the terra Orthoptera has been 

 usually applied to the suborder— a name which, in its Latin form, was not proposed 

 until 180G by Latreille (in Sormiui's Buffon). 



Considerations g6n<;rales sur l'order naturel des Crustacea, etc. (1810). 



