PTINUS. 
36 
that celebrated work the Pseudodoxia Epidemica 
of the learned Sir Tiiomas Brown, who on this 
subject expresses hlinself in words like these. 
He that could eradicate this error from the 
minds of the neople would sav e from many a cold 
svveat the n.eticulOus heads of nurses and grand- 
motiiCiS^.” 
A very destructive little species of Ptinus is 
often seen in collections of dried plants, &c. &c. 
remarkabie for the ravages it commits both in its 
larva and perfect state. The larva resembles that 
of a beetle in miniature, being about the eighth 
of an inch long, and of a thickish form, lying with 
the body bent, and is of a white colour. The 
perfect bisect is very small, measuring only about 
the tenth of an inch, and is slender, of a pale 
yellowish chesnut colour, appearing, when magni- 
fied, beset with small short hairs, with the wing- 
covers finely striped by rows of small impressed 
points or dots. The ravages of the larva are most 
remarkable during the summer. 
The Ptinus Fur of Linnmus is another very de- 
structive species. Its length is somewhat more 
than the tenth of an inch, and its colour pale 
chesnut-brown, sometimes marked on the wing- 
covers by a pair of greyish bands: the antennas 
are rather long and slender ; the body remarkably 
convex, and the thorax, when magnified, appears 
* The reader will perceive that I have repeated the history 
of the Deadi-Watch from ihe description which I long ago 
published in the Naturalist’s Miscellany. 
