366 NOISES OF INSECTS. 



With teeth or with claws it will bite or will scratcJr, 



And chambermaids christen this worm a death-watcli r 



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 tlu' post: 



But a kettle of scalding hot water injected, 



Infallibly cures the timber aflecfed : 



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 

 insect from which this sound of terror proceeded, some 

 attributing it to a kind of wood-louse, as I lately ob- 

 served, 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, F. Swammerdam ob- 

 serves, that a small beetle, which he had in his collec- 

 tion, having firmly fixed its fore legs, and put its in- 

 flexed head between them, makes a continual noise in 

 old pieces of wood, walls, and cielings, which is some- 

 times so loud, that upon hearing it, people have fan- 

 cied that hobgoblins, ghosts, or fairies were wandering 

 around them ^. Evidently this was one of the death- 

 watches. Latreille observed Anohium striatum, F. 

 produce the sound in question by a stroke of its mandi- 

 bles upon the wood, which was answered by a similar 

 noise from within it. But the species whose proceed- 



'Bibl.Nal. Ed. Hill, i. 125, 



