266 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



All the species of Termites are not social ; but the 

 solitary ones do not, like their congeners, distinguish 

 themselves in architecture. In other respects, their habits 

 are more similar ; for they destroy almost every substance, 

 animal and vegetable. The most common of the solitary 

 species must be faimiliar to all our readers by the name of 

 wood-louse {Termes pulsatorium, Linn.; Atropos lig nanus, 

 Leach) — one of the insects which produces the ticking 

 superstitiously termed the death-watch. It is not so large as 

 the common louse, but whiter and more slender, having a 

 red mouth and yellow eyes. It lives in old books, the 

 paper on walls, collections of insects and dried plants, and 

 is extremely agile in its movements, darting, by jerks, into 

 dark corners for the purpose of concealment. It does not 

 like to run straight forward without resting every half- 

 second, as if to listen or look about for its pursuer, and at 

 such resting times it is easily taken. The ticking noise is 

 made by the insect beating against the wood with its head, 

 and it is supposed by some to be peculiar to the female, 

 and to be connected with the laying of her eggs. M. 

 Latreille, however, thinks that the wood-louse is only the 

 grub of the Psocus abdominalis, in which case it could not 

 lay eggs; but this opinion is somewhat questionable. 

 Another death-watch is a small beetle (Anobium tesselatuni) . 



