"The mother," says De Geer, "was accompanied by a troop of little ones, sometimes as many as forty in number. She remained constantly with them, generally on a twig or leaf. I noticed that the little ones and their mother did not always remain in the same place, and that as soon as the mother began to move to another position, all the little ones began to run after her, and stopped whenever the mother halted. She used to take them, as it were, for a walk from twig to twig, or from one leaf to another, parading up and down the branches of the tree, and she conducted them wherever she pleased, just as a hen does her chickens. It frequently afforded me great pleasure to observe their movements. One day I cut a young branch of the birch-tree inhabited by such an insect family, and I immediately saw the mother, apparently in great anxiety, begin to flap her wings violently, but without attempting to fly away, as though she would frighten away her enemy. At another time she would have immediately made her escape, thus plainly showing that she remained only in order to defend her young brood."
As if to furnish an instance of precisely the opposite import, the cruel and murderous father of this interesting little family is one of the greatest enemies the poor mother has to contend against. This hard-hearted parent does not hesitate whenever he falls in with one of his children to seize him and eat him up! If the mother spies him at this horrible feast she immediately attacks him in the manner described; and does her utmost to deter him from his cannibal propensities, by placing herself in an attitude of determined resistance before him. Was ever mother's love more plainly manifested than this love? No other instance of an affection so strange and strong is to be found in the tribe to which she belongs.
The care of the earwig not only extends to her eggs, but also to her young larvæ. "In the beginning of June," writes the author last quoted, "I found under a stone a female earwig, surrounded by a number of little creatures which I discovered to be her tiny family. She did not attempt to leave them, and they frequently ran and crouched under her, just as chickens under the wing of a hen. I took them up and placed them under a sand-glass, under which I had put a little fresh earth. They did not bore into the earth; and it was most curious to see them running for shelter under the mother, and pushing about between her feet, while she remained perfectly quiet. I fed them with pieces of ripe apple, which the mother seized and ate with great avidity, detaching morsels of it by means of her teeth, and swallowing them. The young ones also ate a little of it, but with less avidity."