50 
OHTHOPTERA. 
small size of the latter, it would not otherwise be able to 
do securely. The forceps is also an instrument of offence 
and defence. The earwig has been seen to seize a small 
beetle with its forceps, and carry it off in spite of its 
efforts to free itself. Earwigs seldom make use of their 
wings except at night. 
These insects show remarkable attachment to their 
eggs and young ones. De Geer noticed a female earwig 
brooding over a number of eggs with the greatest care, 
and on another occasion he saw one accompanied by a 
numerous brood of newly hatched young, which crowded 
beneath her like chickens under a hen. This fact has 
since been corroborated by Spence and other entomolo¬ 
gists. The young, or lame, are like the perfect insect, 
except that they have no wings, and the forceps is not 
well-developed, not having the characteristic curve. 
They are at first quite of a pale colour, and active, and 
have the bad character of sometimes devouring the dead 
body of their mother 
Earwigs are popularly supposed to enter the ears of 
persons sleeping in the open air, and reaching the brain, 
causing death. Extremely foolish as the fancy is, it has 
been so widely-spread as to give a name to this insect in 
many European languages. Some writers have derived 
the English name earwig from ear-wing, of which it is 
thought to be a corruption, in allusion to the shape of 
the insect’s wing, but that this is incorrect is evident 
from the name in other countries. It is the perce- 
oreille of the French ; the ohren-hohler or olir-ivurm , of 
the Germans; the or-matk (math being “ a worm/’) of 
the Swedes. Our word means an ear worm , the latter 
part of the word being from the Anglo-Saxon wirjga , 
“a worm,” or ‘‘creeping thing.” 
