270 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 



in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, p.viii., concerning Pti- 

 linuspectinicornis, myriads of which completely destroyed a new bed- 

 post in the short space of three years. Mr. Spence has also given an 

 account of the great injury produced in the timbers of houses, at Brus- 

 sels, by Anobium tesselatum {Ent. Trans, vol. ii. p. xi.). In the third 

 volume of Illigers Magazin., there is a memoir by Von Malinousky, 

 on the destruction of these beetles. Some species, including A. pani- 

 ceum, &c., feed upon almost every substance, devouring ginger, rhu- 

 barb, cayenne pepper, black wafers, &c., even perforating tinfoil in 

 the larva state, and rendering ship biscuit unfit for use by feeding and 

 breeding in it in great profusion. The last-named insect has also 

 been known to devour even Cantharides ; I have also often found it in 

 the bodies of old specimens of insects ; it is also very troublesome where 

 quantities of wafers are kept, feeding upon them and fastening them 

 together in masses of three or four, within which it undergoes its 

 transformations. Ptinus fur will also feed upon old woollen clothes; 

 it also feeds upon wheat deposited in granaries, committing great 

 devastation, as we learn from some observations of M. Audouin, 

 published in the Ann. de la Sac. Ent. de France, 1836. p. Ixii. 



Some of these insects (Anobium striatum, tesselatum, &c.) are 

 also the cause of occasional alarm to ignorant persons, from the noise 

 which they make during the season of pairing, by striking their jaws 

 upon the object upon which they are stationed, by way of signal, and 

 which is replied to in the same manner by the other sex. Hence 

 these insects have acquired the vulgar name of the Death Watch ; the 

 noise somewhat resembling the ticking of a watch, and being regarded 

 as a superstitious omen. 



" The solemn death-watch click 'd the hour she died." 



Gay. 



Mr. Dillwyn, in his Stcansea Coleoj^tera, states, that the same 

 opinion also prevails in Wales ; the insect being termed by the Welsh 

 " Mawr orearw ; " but he thinks the name is also given to the Termes 

 pulsatorius. From a lengthened series of observations which I have 

 made upon this subject (see Mag. Nat. Hist. Sept. 1834.), I am inclined 

 to believe that the same noise is also produced by the larvae, whilst 

 gnawing the wood upon which it feeds. Olivier thought it was also 

 produced by the larvae, but that it was occasioned by the blows which 

 they made, in order to ascertain the thickness of the wood which still 

 remained unbored, before they could reach the surface. 



