. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. 20!: ORTHOPTERA is exposed and the other part concealed, and the exposed portion is totally different in colour and texture from the concealed portion. The wings of earwigs are attached to the body in a very unusual manner; each wing is continued inwards on the upper surface of the metanotum, as if it were a layer of the integument meeting its fellow on the mesial line ; the point of contact forming two angles just behind the metanotum. Some writers have considered that the tegmina of earwigs are not the homologues of those of other Orthoptera, but are
. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. 20!: ORTHOPTERA is exposed and the other part concealed, and the exposed portion is totally different in colour and texture from the concealed portion. The wings of earwigs are attached to the body in a very unusual manner; each wing is continued inwards on the upper surface of the metanotum, as if it were a layer of the integument meeting its fellow on the mesial line ; the point of contact forming two angles just behind the metanotum. Some writers have considered that the tegmina of earwigs are not the homologues of those of other Orthoptera, but are really tegulae (cf. Fig. 56, p. 103). "We are not aware that any direct evidence has been produced in support of this view. The pair of forceps with which the body is armed at its extremity forms another character almost peculiar to the earwigs, but which exists in the genus Japyx of the Thysanma. These forceps vary much in the different genera of the family ; they sometimes attain a large size and assume very extraordinary and dis- torted shapes. They are occasionally used by the Insects as a means of completing the process of packing up the wings, but in many species it is not probable that they can be used for this purpose, because their great size and peculiarly distorted forms render them unsuitable for assisting in a delicate process of arrangement; they are, too, always present in the wingless forms of the family. Their importance to the creature is at present quite obscure; we can only compare them with the horns of Lamellicorn Coleoptera, which have hitherto proved inexplicable so far as utility is concerned. No doubt the callipers of the earwigs give them an imposing appearance, and may be of some little advantage on this account; they are not known to be used as offensive instruments for fighting, but they are occasionally brought into play for purposes of defence, the creatures using them for the infiiction of nips, which, however, are by no means of a formida
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1895
