"82 NOISES OF JNSIX'TS. 



Witli teetli or with claws it will bite or will scratch. 



And chambermaids christen this worm a death-watcii ; 



Because like a watch it always cries click ; 



Then woe be to those in the house who are sick ! 



For, sure as a gun, they will give up the ghost, 



If the maggot cries click, when it scratches the post ; 



But a kettle of scalding hot water injected, 



Infallibly cures the timber affected : 



The omen is broken, the danger is over, 



The maggot will die, and the sick will recover." 



To add to the effect of this noise, it is said to be made 

 only when there is a profound silence in an apartment, 

 and every one is still. 



Authors were formerly not agreed concerning the in- 

 sect from which this sound of terror proceeded, some at- 

 tributing it to a kind of wood-louse, as I lately observed, 

 and others to a spider ; but it is a received opinion now, 

 adopted upon satisfactory evidence, that it is produced by 

 some little beetles belonging to the timber-boring genus 

 Anobium. Swammerdam observes, that a small beetle, 

 which he had in his collection, having firmly fixed its 

 fore legs, and put its inflexed head between them, makes a 

 continual noise in old pieces of wood, walls, and ceilings, 

 which is sometimes so loud, that upon hearing it, peo- 

 ple have fancied that hobgoblins, ghosts, or fairies were 

 wandering around them ^. Evidently this was one of 

 the death-watches. Latreille observed Anobium stria- 

 turn produce the sound in question by a stroke of its 

 mandibles upon the wood, which was answered by a si- 

 milar noise from within it. But the species whose pro- 

 ceedings have been most noticed by British observers 

 is A. tesscUatim. When spring is far advanced, these 

 ^ Bibl. Nat. Ed. Hill, i. ]'3r>. 



