NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
35 
to, but I should like to add for the information of readers of Nature Notes that 
the cow bird does not belong to the Sturnidre or starling family, as Mr. Stuart 
Dove has stated. It is a member of the exclusively American family Steridre, the 
hangnests, so called because most species build large pendent nests similar to 
weaver birds. It has nothing to do with the starlings, although it is only fair to 
add that many species are outwardly much like starlings in appearance, but they 
are true Passeres and therefore nearer to the starlings than the cuckoos, with which 
they have nothing in common excepting the parasitic breeding habits of some 
species. Mr. Dove in his article calls the bird the “ Cowper ” bird, and in the 
errata note it is corrected to “Cowpen.” I fail to trace either name, and the 
correct name seems to be Cow Bird, and it has been named thus from its habit 
of perching on cattle. I trust these further notes will be interesting and useful to 
your readers, and have no doubt Mr. Stuart Dove will accept my corrections in 
the spirit with which they are offered by me. His reference to this bird in the 
article mentioned above led me astray recently, and I think 1 have given satisfac- 
tory reasons therefor, and it is for this reason, and because others may have 
suffered a similar fate, that I offer these unpretentious additional notes. 
St. Albans, Herts. W. Percival Westell, M.B.O.U. 
January 15, 1903. 
Tame Trout. — A friend had some trout in a piece of water close to his front 
door, which he tamed by constantly giving them food. On one occasion he held 
a worm near the surface of the water. A large trout jumped at the worm, and 
seizing hold of his fingers cut them to the bone with its teeth by its own weight. 
January, 1903. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
Earwigs and the Human Ear.— The supposed fondness of earwigs for 
getting into the human ear is a question I have watched for many years ; and 
there is but little difference between me and what Mr. W. F. Kirby states in p. 16 
of your January issue. It is yet to be proved that earwigs have more inclination 
to take refuge in our ears than many other insects. Earwigs are nocturnal 
animals, having an intense dislike for daylight, and when suddenly exposed to it, 
or driven from their retreat, seek the first hiding place they come across, and in 
so doing one out of a few millions may find its way into a human ear. When 
beating for Lepidoptera I have shaken showers of insects on to my head and 
shoulders, many of which have dived into my eyes, nose or mouth ; but though 
earwigs were commonly among the number, they preferred going down my neck 
or up my sleeves to anywhere else. The human ear is so protected as to be 
naturally distasteful to British insects, and none have ever entered mine. I have 
often heard of the plan Mr. Kirby mentions of using oil to get an earwig out of 
the ear. This would probably kill it then and there, involving further trouble of 
extraction, for oil kills insects almost instantly by clogging up their tracheae or 
breathing vessels. An oiled feather applied to the sides of a wasp or beetle will 
prove this. A safer plan, that I have also heard of, is to hold a piece of apple to 
the ear, and coax the earwig out. The amount of oil or apples used for this 
purpose in the next hundred years will probably be infinitesimal. 
January, 1903. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
Earwigs. — Those Selbornians who live in the country have great oppor- 
tunities for observing insect life, but I am afraid that this familiarity begets 
a little carelessness, and haste to record such in Nature Notes. 
I should like to know at what hour Mr. Daubeny has often seen the earwig 
folding up its wings. Is there anything extraordinary in the fact of an earwig 
crawling into a human ear, any more than into the spur of a nasturtium ? Self- 
presetvation is the reason in both cases. 
When I was a boy I found a hollow elder twig in a hedge, and without 
thought put one end into my mouth, into which a number of earwigs quickly 
crawled, but were as quickly discharged to a considerable distance. No doubt 
every Lepidopterist who has beaten for larvae has had his ears and neck well 
supplied with insects of various orders ; and this reminds me that very few 
entomologists call an earwig a beetle. 
I should like to suggest to the reader of Nature Notes that more inter- 
esting matter might be inserted than the repeated repetition (in the present 
