The Death-watch commences its clicking, which is nothing more than the call or signal by which the male and female are led to each other, chiefly when spring is far advanced. The sound is thus produced: Raising itself upon its hind legs, with the body somewhat inclined, it beats its head with great force and agility upon the plane of position. The prevailing number of distinct strokes which it beats in succession is from seven to nine or eleven; which circumstance, thinks Mr. Shaw, may perhaps still add, in some degree, to the ominous character which it bears. These strokes follow each other quickly, and are repeated at uncertain intervals. In old houses, where these insects abound, they may be heard in warm weather during the whole day.[188]
Baxter, in his World of Spirits, p. 203, most sensibly observes, that “there are many things that ignorance causeth multitudes to take for prodigies. I have had many discreet friends that have been affrighted with the noise called a Death-watch, whereas I have since, near three years ago, oft found by trial that it is a noise made upon paper by a little, nimble, running worm, just like a louse, but whiter and quicker; and it is most usually behind a paper pasted to a wall, especially to wainscot; and it is rarely, if ever, heard but in the heat of summer.” Our author, however, relapses immediately into his honest credulity, adding: “But he who can deny it to be a prodigy, which is recorded by Melchior Adamus, of a great and good man, who had a clock-watch that had layen in a chest many years unused; and when he lay dying, at eleven o’clock, of itself, in that chest, it struck eleven in the hearing of many.”
In the British Apollo, 1710, ii. No. 86, is the following query: “Why Death-watches, crickets, and weasels do come more common against death than at any other time? A. We look upon all such things as idle superstitions, for were
any thing in them, bakers, brewers, inhabitants of old houses, &c., were in a melancholy condition.”
To an inquiry, ibid. vol. ii. No. 70, concerning a Death-watch, whether you suppose it to be a living creature, answer is given: “It is nothing but a little worm in the wood.”
“How many people have I seen in the most terrible palpitations, for months together, expecting every hour the approach of some calamity, only by a little worm, which breeds in old wainscot, and, endeavoring to eat its way out, makes a noise like the movement of a watch!” Secret Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbell, 8vo. Lond. 1732, p. 61.[189]
Authors were formerly not agreed concerning the insect from which this sound of terror proceeded, some attributing it to a kind of wood-louse, others to a spider.
M. Peiguot mentions an instance where, in a public library that was but little frequented, twenty-seven folio volumes were perforated in a straight line by one and the same larva of a small insect (Anobium pertinax or A. striatum?) in such a manner that, on passing a cord through the perfectly round hole made by the insect, these twenty-seven volumes could be raised at once.[190]
Bostrichidæ—Typographer-beetles.
The Typographer-beetle, Bostrichus typographus, is so called on account of a fancied resemblance between the paths it erodes and letters. This insect bores into the fir, and feeds upon the soft inner bark; and in such vast numbers that 80,000 are sometimes found in a single tree. The ravages of this insect have long been known in Germany under the name of Wurm trökniss—decay caused by worms; and in the old liturgies of that country the animal itself is formally mentioned under its common appellation, The Turk. About the year 1665, this pest was particularly prevalent and caused incalculable mischief. In the beginning of the last century it again showed itself in the Hartz forests; it reappeared in 1757, redoubled its injuries in