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5

the same year, Tillyard told of the serious damage to fruit in New Zealand where they were eating peaches, nectarines and apricots. In his list of some unusual insect fruit pests in North America, Theobald in 1926 included the European earwig. Also, in the same year he noted that earwigs seriously affected hops in the Northwest. One hundred per cent injury to five acres of corn was reported by Coyne (1928) in Washington. In the following year, Hear1e (1929) observed injury to corn in British Columbia by the earwigs' feeding on silks. Injury to barley, rye and wheat and especially to corn was noted by Eckstein of Baden, Germany in 1931. Knowlton regarded the European earwig as an invader of Utah in 1940. Crumb, Eide and Bonn (1941) recorded serious damage to garden flowers by the feeding of this insect on petals or by its devouring pollen and thus interfering with pollination. It was reported as a, serious pest in Merced fig and peach orchards in California by Warner in 1953. Guppy (1946) indicates that although carrots, beets, rhubarb, legumes and potatoes are readily eaten by earwigs, they seem never to harm lettuce. Cascara (Rhamnus purshiana) is one tree whose foliage is readily attacked by these insects as was also recorded by Guppy.

There are no reports of earwigs transmitting a pathogen or causing a human disease.

There are a few notes in the literature pertaining to good qualities of the earwigs. They were deemed beneficial by destroying larvae and pupae of Cochylis ambiguella (Van Rossum, 1899). Von Schilling in 1887 states that the earwig was beneficial to apple trees by killing other insect pests thereon. Littler in 1918 found that the pupae of codling moths were eaten by earwigs in Tasmania. They were found to be predators of the "Lucerne Flea" (Smynthurus viridis Linn.) by Mac1a.gan in 1932; and Crumb (1941) presents evidence of aphids being wiped out by earwigs