EARWIG. 
GENERIC CHARACTER. 
Antenna; setaceous. 
Elytra much shorter than the abdomen. 
Extremity of the abdomen armed with a kind of forceps. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTER. 
Forficula auricularia. F. elytris apice albiSj antennis qua- 
tuordecim articulatis. Linn. Syst. 
Nat. Gmel. 1 . p. 2038. 
Apex of tire wing-cases white j an- 
tennae divided into fourteen arti- 
culations. 
Forficuea major. Degeer I?is.3. 
p. 545. no. 1. pi. 25. f. 16. 
Vermis auricularius. Frisch. 
Ins. S. p. 31. pi. 15. f. 1, 2. 
Common Earwig. . . S chaff. Icon. pi. 144. f. 3, 4. Shaw 
Gen. Zool. 6. p. 110. pi. 40. 
This insect is very generally known, and too com- 
monly dreaded, from a false notion that it will enter 
the cavity of a person’s ear, and, by piercing the 
drum, deprive him of hearing, and even cause his 
death by the intolerable pain which it produces. 
This idea might have originated in the great pro- 
