earwig; an earwig far gone in that way in which earwigs wish to be who
love their lords. I have a profound horror of earwigs; I firmly believe
that they do get into the ear. That is a subject on which it is useless
to argue with me upon philosophical grounds. 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; and 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!

But the creature was certainly larger than an earwig. It might have
been one of that genus in the family of Forficulidce called Labidoura,--
monsters whose antennae have thirty joints! There is a species of this
creature in England--but to the great grief of naturalists, and to the
great honor of Providence, very rarely found--infinitely larger than the
common earwig, or Forfaculida auriculana. Could it have been an early
hornet? It had certainly a black head and great feelers. I have a
greater horror of hornets, if possible, than I have of earwigs. Two
hornets will kill a man, and three a carriage-horse sixteen hands high.
However, the creature was gone. Yes, but where? Where had I so rashly
thrown it? It might have got into a fold of my dressing-gown or into my
slippers, or, in short, anywhere, in the various recesses for earwigs
and hornets which a gentleman's habiliments afford. I satisfy myself at
last as far as I can, seeing that I am not alone in the room, that it is
not upon me. I look upon the carpet, the rug, the chair under the
fender. It is non inventus. I barbarously hope it is frizzing behind
that great black coal in the grate. I pluck up courage; I prudently