Earwig

“ The earwig is a very destructive animal, doing considerable injury to most kinds of wall fruit, to carnations, and other fine flowers, &c. and as they only [206] feed in the night, they escape the search of the gardener. Reeds open at both ends, and placed among fruit trees, are a good trap for them, as they croud into these open channels, and may be blown out into a tub of water. ”

“ Much damage is sustained by gardeners from the depredations of these insects among fruit and tender vegetables, which constitute their proper food. The earwig is about three-quarters of an inch in length, having the wings folded under very short and truncate elytra or wing-cases, and the extremity of the abdomen armed with a horny forceps. ”

“ The earwig is a trimeral insect; that is, its tarsi are each composed of three joints. Its mandibles are comparatively weak. The moment you touch it, the insect raises, with great quickness, the extremity of its supple body, and endeavours to defend itself with its pincers. The female lays her eggs chiefly in the chinks and crannies of time-worn timber, and the larvæ issuing from them do not differ, in any material respect, from the perfect insect. ”

“ But nevertheless they have very large and powerful wings, only, during the daytime, while they are not being used, these organs are folded away in the most beautiful manner under the tiny wing-cases. By night, however, earwigs often fly; and when they settle, they fold up their wings most cleverly by means of the horny pincers at the tail-end of their bodies, and then pull the wing-cases down over them!
That is the real use of the pincers, although the earwig is able to give quite a smart pinch with them if it is interfered with. ”

“ The Earwig.—Among the most tiresome of pests is the earwig. The bar-framed hive seems to suit its requirements in every particular, and an opportunity is apparently never lost by it to enter and take possession. Any - 113 - empty combs that may lie within its purview are immediately commandeered for its own particular purposes—even when combs are kept for warmth in a super or section crate on the quilt inside the hive they are not safe from the ravages of this pest. Its eggs are deposited in the cells and the combs rendered useless. ”

“ The insect called the earwig is popularly supposed to be so named from its tendency to get into the human ear, and cause pain and madness by penetrating to the brain. An earwig, however, is no more likely to get into the ear than any other insect whose habit it is to penetrate the corollas of flowers; and should an insect enter the ear, it could get no further than the membrane of the tympanum, which spreads all over the auditory passage, just as the parchment of a drum spreads over the entire circumference of that instrument. ”

“ Every night, and sometimes two or three times in the day, she would form fresh places in the earth, and replace the eggs. To prevent the soil becoming too dry, I used to sprinkle a little water upon it—a drop here and there-and if by accident the water fell too near the eggs, the earwig became much excited, hurrying to and fro with her eggs, until they were all removed to a drier spot. ”

“ On the other hand, if I omitted the water until the earth became dry, she would choose the dampest spot that remained in which to form her nest, and seemed to welcome the water-drops, drinking herself from them, and feeling the damp earth with her antennæ. She remained thus for three weeks, feeding on little pieces of beef or mutton, or an occasional fly; I did not then know that earwigs are mostly vegetable feeders, but it is clear they can eat other food when needful. ”

“ There does not appear to be on record any occurrence that could justify such a dread, or the belief that they enter the ears. If they do not do so, it is certainly a curious fact that a superstition of the kind we have mentioned occurs in almost every country where the common earwig is abundant ”

“ Perhaps the very worst and most destructive of these parasites is the common earwig, which wreaks wholesale desolation in the nest. It creeps into the burrow, and if it finds a store of pollen laid up for the young, it will eat the pollen. But if the young grub be hatched it will eat the grub. If the inmate be in the pupal state, or even if it be ready to emerge in its perfect condition, the earwig will eat it.
There are two bees which are parasitic upon this unfortunate insect, both belonging the genus Melecta. ”

“ The common earwig has a very bad reputation with gardeners, who consider it to be an injurious Insect, but it is probable that the little creature is sometimes made the scapegoat for damage done by other animals; it appears to be fond of sweets, for it often makes its way to the interior of fruits, and it no doubt nibbles the petals, or other delicate parts of flowers and vegetables. Camerano, however, states, l.c., that the specimens he kept in confinement preferred dead Insects rather than the fruits he offered them. ”

“ She feasted thus for four or five minutes, but I am sorry to add that, unlike the humane ants, who care tenderly for their aphides and preserve their lives by kind treatment, the earwig ended by munching up the unfortunate aphis, till not a trace of it was left.
At the end of three weeks I found one morning all the eggs were hatched, and tiny, snow-white earwigs, with forceps and antennæ fully developed, were creeping about and around their mother. I placed a slice of pear in the saucer, upon which the little ones swarmed, and seemed to find it congenial food. ”

“ Why is an Earwig called a "Coach-bell?"—Your correspondents, although both kind and learned, do not appear to have given any satisfactory answer to my former query—why a lady-bird is called Bishop Barnaby? Probably there will be less difficulty in answering another entomological question—Why do the country-people in the south of Scotland call an earwig a "coach-bell?" ”

“ I placed the eight matches upon the scales, and found that their combined weight was twenty-four times that of the insect. Each piece of timber was four times longer than the carrier, making in all a load of wood thirty-two times longer than the earwig. A horse is thicker in depth than breadth; whereas an earwig's breadth exceeds that of its depth. ”

“ Besides the common earwig, (F. auricularia,) there are at least four other species indigenous to Britain, and others are found in foreign countries; all our native kinds, however, are rare, except F. minor, (constituting the genus Labia of Leach,) which occurs not unfrequently, and is usually observed on the wing, which is not often the case with the common species. The latter are nocturnal insects, frequenting moist and shady places, and are particularly obnoxious to gardeners and florists for the injuries they commit to fruits and flowers. ”

“ Creative Evolution, p. 71.
133 I do not say that the assumption that these two groups of earwigs were of different ages is altogether an easy one; for of course, even in an insect whose metamorphosis is so simple as the earwig’s, consisting only in the acquisition of wings or wing-cases, we usually take it for granted that growth proceeds no more after the final stage, or “adult form” is attained, and further that this adult form is attained at an ap­prox­i­mate­ly constant age, and constant magnitude. ”

“ He allowed them, while holding tight on their tails, to crawl half-way down his throat and back again. He said they were nice clean animals, and good company. Little boys at school often swallow frogs. An earwig probably has fine social qualities, which only want bringing out: naturalists tell us they make the best of mothers. ”

“ The Earwig is too familiar to need much description, but I may as well state that its pincers are not primarily intended as weapons, although they can be so used on occasion. (I was about to say, at a pinch, but refrain.) They resemble our ordinary pincers in that both blades move equally, and they are so completely under the control of their owner, that the insect uses them with a delicacy of touch that a lady’s fingers could hardly surpass. They are really tools, and not weapons, and are employed for the purpose of folding the wide and delicate wings under the tiny elytra. ”

“ Earwigs have the reputation of being fond of their young, and Camerano describes the female of the common earwig as carefully collecting its eggs when scattered, lifting them with its mandibles and placing them in a heap over which it afterwards brooded. De Geer [143] more than a century ago observed a fondness of the mother for the young. After the eggs were hatched, Camerano's individual, however, evinced no interest in the young. A larger species, Labidura riparia (Fig. 110) is said to move its eggs from place to place, so as to keep them in situations favourable for their development. ”

“ Only, the originator of this absurd bugbear forgot one little fact: there is no opening by which the ear can communicate with the brain! As for the pincers, they are not so formidable as they appear. This character, however, has been considered a sufficient foundation by the naturalists, even by Linnæus himself, for the insect's scientific name, Forficula auricularia, which is almost literally translated by the French oreille-pince,—our English earwig or ear-piercer. (Fig. 64.)
Fig. 64.—The Earwig (Forficula auricularia) .
What dress is to man, their wings are to insects ”

“ It has been said, however, that they also feed largely on plant lice or aphides, which, if true, give them a very redeeming quality.
The female earwig deposits her eggs under a stone in some cavity in the ground often dug out by her own labour.
Unlike most other insects, the female does not perish as soon as she has laid her eggs, but lives to behold her offspring, brooding over them almost like a hen. But it is distressing to learn that if the mother should die she is immediately devoured by her progeny. ”

“ During the winter this insect lies underground, where the female will be found with her cluster of eggs. In the spring these eggs hatch, and the small whitish young earwigs (Fig. 4, 2) emerge from the ground to feed largely upon the pollen and pistils of flowers. At that time the insects and the injury they do are not very noticeable, but as the earwigs grow in size they become conspicuous and extend their depredations to the foliage of plants and to fruit. ”

“ Mantids were once rare in New England but in recent years seem to have been extending their range northward and are now quite common even in the grassy beach area. They are said to be the only insects that can look over their shoulders.
The Earwigs
European Earwig (Forficula auricularia) Wings short, not half length of body Two pincers on tail
The Earwig hides by day, coming out at night to feed on plant material. Since it does not bite with its pincers, it can be handled freely. Other species are occasionally found. The Seaside Earwig (Anisolabis maritima) is the largest New England earwig. ”

“ The forms and appearance of the common earwig are so familiar to all, that we have thought it unnecessary to figure any of the species, especially since they are all very similar to each other; but as they present several peculiarities in their structure and habits, it is necessary to give some account of them, otherwise our exposition of this order would be incomplete. It has been already mentioned, that the disposition of the wings does not correspond to what is observed in other Orthoptera, since they are folded both longitudinally and transversely. ”

“ I have a vivid recollection of a story told me by Mrs Primmins—How a lady for many years suffered under the most excruciating headaches; how, as the tombstones say, "physicians were in vain;" how she died; how her head was opened, and how such a nest of earwigs—ma'am—such a nest!—Earwigs are the prolifickest things, and so fond of their offspring! They sit on their eggs like hens—and the young, as soon as they are born, creep under them for protection—quite touchingly! Imagine such an establishment domesticated at one's tympanum! ”

“ The subject of the variation of the male callipers of the earwig has been considered by Messrs. Bateson and Brindley, [131] who examined 1000 specimens captured on the same day on one of the Farne islands off the coast of Northumberland; 583 of these were mature males, and the pincers were found to vary in length from about 21⁄2 mm. to 9 mm. (A and B in Fig. 109 represent two of the more extreme forms of this set of individuals.) Specimens of medium size were not, as it might perhaps have been expected they would be, the most common ”

“ This has been denied by many authors, but we have personally known instances of earwigs entering the ears of persons lying asleep in fields in the summer time. The insect can be driven out immediately by pouring a little oil into the ear. ”

“ Natural Callipers are plentiful enough, and may be found extensively among the insect tribes. There are, for example, the pincers of the Earwig, which have already been described on page 259, and which are, in the common species, formed exactly like the Callipers of the sculptor. ”

“ The developed wings of earwigs are worthy of attention, both as regards their actual structure and the manner in which they are folded up in repose. When expanded they have a shape curiously suggestive of the human ear. The chief parts of the wing, as shown in Fig. 107, A, are a, b, two portions of the horny piece that forms the scale which covers the more delicate parts of the wing when it is folded, and which, according to Brunner, represents the radial and ulnar fields of the wings of Acridiidae and Locustidae (see Fig. 167) ”