220 
SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT. 
petals, and many of the most cherished ornaments of 
the flower border, particularly the stately dahlia, are 
frequently rendered unseemly by their attacks. The 
common earwig is widely distributed, and has been 
found as far north as Boothia. 
The common names given to this insect in Britain 
are rather peculiar, and it is not easy to say what 
circumstances have suggested them. Throughout the 
south of Scotland it is known to the peasantry by the 
name of coackbell , for what reason I am unable to 
conjecture. Mr. Newman suggests that earwig, an 
unmeaning term, may be a corruption of earwing , as 
the wing is shaped very like the human ear, an ex- 
planation not unlikely to be the true one. 
Several anomalies have already been alluded to in 
the structure of earwigs, and it remains to be added 
that a very remarkable one also occurs in their eco- 
nomy. Frisch, De Geer, and many other entomolo- 
gists have observed the female watching over her eggs 
with great care, and even covering them with her 
body as if on purpose to hatch them, a fact which is 
well known to those who are in the habit of overturn- 
ing stones in search of insects. This is a remarkable 
contrast to the practice of nearly all other insects, 
whose maternal duties entirely cease with the depo- 
sition of the eggs, which they abandon to every hostile 
influence. The young seem to appreciate and return 
their mother's affection, for they have been seen 
nestling under their parent like chickens under a hen. 
It must not be imagined, as some appear to have done, 
that the incubation alluded to is designed to hatch 
