lv mY 
watches,” had induced Mr. Henry Doubleday to send him an account which shewed 
that his (Mr. Smith’s) doubt was, as to Anobium at all events, unfounded. Mr. 
Doubleday, under date of Epping, 31st Dec. 1865, wrote as follows: — 
“T cannot speak positively about the Atropos, but I am strongly inclined to believe 
that it is the insect which produces the continuous faint ticking sound so frequently 
heard in the spring. It seems almost impossible that such. a delicate little creature 
should be able to produce any sound whatever, but I have always found it in places 
from which the ticking sound appeared to proceed. I have often thought it very 
wonderful that the pied woodpecker can, by striking the branch of a tree with its beak, 
produce a sound which may be heard for half a mile; we could not produce a similar 
sound by striking the tree with a stick or anything else. I can speak positively with 
regard to the Anobium, and I assure you that this little beetle produces the loud 
ticking sound, by raising itself upon its legs as high as it can, and then striking the 
head and under part of the thorax against the substance upon which it is standing, 
generally about five or six times in rapid succession; and it always chooses a 
substance which produces the most sound. It is evidently a call-note from one 
individual to another, as you very rarely hear one rap without its being immediately 
answered by another. I have repeatedly kept one in a card pill-box, and if I imitated 
the sound, by tapping anything with a pointed pencil or something of that kind, the 
Anobium would instantly answer me. This insect is common in our house, but it is 
not very easy to obtain them, as,when you have found out by their rapping where they 
are, they drop the instant you move anything near them. If all is well I will 
endeavour to obtain you some bye-and-bye, and send them to you alive.” 
Dr. Alex. Wallace mentioned, that on recently repairing the roof of an old church 
at Colchester, which had been attacked by Anobium, it was found that the damage 
was Chiefly confined to the south side, the other sides being but slightly affected ; this 
was the case both with the nave and aisles. Could it be that the beetles selected the 
south side from its greater warmth ? 
Mr. McLachlan enquired if the same description of wood was used throughout ? 
Dr. Wallace believed so ; all that he saw was oak. 
Prof. Westwood said, if it were oak the depredator was doubtless Anobium tessel- 
latum; there might be other reasons than the warmth which took the beetles to the 
south side; the prevalence of particular winds, or greater exposure to rain, might 
make the wood more liable to decay, or more attractive and palatable to the 
insects. 
Mr. Stainton announced with regret the recent death of Senator von Heyden, of 
Frankfort, from an accidental fall, in the 73rd year of his age. 
Mr. Stainton also announced the arrival of Mr. Wollasion at the Cape de 
Verdes: the examination of two small islands had already yielded 150 species 
of Coleoptera. 
Prof. Westwood mentioned that in the Stett. Ent. Zeit. just published was a figure 
of a gynandromorphous Dytiscus (male on the right side, female on the left), very 
much reseuibliug that described and figured by him in the third vol. of the * Trans- 
actions, p. 203, pl. xi. Mr. McLachlan added that, in the same publication, a 
gynandromorpbous Argynnis Paphia was mentioned, the right side of which was 
female and the left side: male, and which had this additioual peculiarity that the 
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