RECREATIVE NATURAL HISTORY. 



RECREATIVE NATURAL HISTORY. 



THE M II. 



HAPPILY the clouds of superstition, which in bygone days oast 



a gloom over the hearthti and homos of England, have gradually 



passed away before the light of scientific truth and the effects 



i | >ut lent research amongttt the mysterious yet simple and beuu- 



uinifestations of Divine wisdom which we familiarly speak 



of an the facts of natural history. Still there are, so to speak, 



dark and benighted nooks and corners not yet thoroughly freed 



: "in tlio baleful mist which so obstinately clings to the unen- 



<-il lurking-places in which ignorance is found to dwell. 



The belief that the sound known as the tick of the death- 

 .\.i:-ii betokened the speedy dissolution of some inhabitant of 

 the house in which it was heard appears to be of very ancient 

 origin ; and that it widely, or rather generally, prevailed through- 

 out the length and breadth of England up to a comparatively 

 recent date there can be but little doubt. Even now it is by no 

 means uncommon to find the fears of aged 

 gossips excited by pigmy tappings of the 

 tiny insect creature who seeks shelter fti 

 some crevice of the wainscot or wall. It 

 would be difficult to find a more noteworthy 

 proof of the tenacity with which superstition 

 once indulged in clings to its victims than is 

 to be found in the remarks on the death- 

 watch made by Richard Baxter, the well- 

 known divine ancl author, born in the year 

 1015, who laboured during the days of the 

 Nonconformists. Speaking of the tappings 

 of the much-dreaded insect, he says : 

 "There are many things that ignorance 

 causeth multitudes to take for prodigies. I 

 have had many discreet friends that have 

 been affrighted with the noise called a death- 

 watch, whereas I have, since near three years 

 ago, oft found by trial that it is a noise 

 made upon paper by a little nimble running 

 worm just like a louse, but whiter and 

 quicker ; and it is most usually behind a 

 paper pasted to a wall, especially to wains- 

 cot, and it is rarely if ever heard but in the 

 heat of the summer." We here see that -r 

 Baxter, having brought his hard-working -L 

 and resolute mind to bear on the matter at 

 issue, had managed to render a most clear 

 and satisfactory account of it ; but now 

 comes the stumble of the guide over the very 

 block against which he warns others. Con- 

 tinuing his subject, he says : "But who can 

 deny it to be a prodigy which is recorded by 

 Melchior Adamns of a great and good man 

 who had a clock-watch that had lain in a 

 chest many years unused, and when he lay 

 dying, at eleven o'clock, of itself in that 

 chest it struck eleven in the hearing of 

 many." It will be observed that Baxter, in 

 speaking of the insect by which the ticking 

 was, in his opinion, made, describes it as a little nimble running 

 worm, just like a louse, but whiter and quicker. 



Now, Sir Thomas Browne, writing on the same subject, says : 

 " Few ears have escaped the noise of the death-watch that is, 

 the little clicking sound heard often in many rooms somewhat 

 resembling that of a watch, and this is conceived to be of evil 

 omen or prediction of some person's death, wherein notwith- 

 standing there is nothing of rational presage or just cause of 

 terror unto melancholy or meticulous heads. For this noise is 

 made by a little, sheath-winged, grey insect, found often in 

 wainscot, benches, and woodwork in the summer. We have 

 taken many thereof, and kept them in thin boxes, wherein we 

 have heard and seen them work and knock with a little pro- 

 boscis or trunk against the sides of the box like a picus , 

 or woodpecker against a tree. It worketh best in warm weather, 

 and, for the most part, giveth not over under nine or eleven 

 strokes at a time. He that could extinguish the terrifying 

 apprehensions hereof might prevent the passions of the heart 

 and many cold sweats in grandmothers and nurses who, in the 

 sickness of children, are so startled with their noises." 



140 N.E. 



It will be observed that the habit* of the insect jost described 

 are identical with thoie of the death-watch mentioned by 

 Baxter ; yet when we come to a description of the insect iUelf, 

 it becomes clear that the two investigators had selected mem* 

 bers of distinct species as being the producers of the sinistur 

 sound. On consulting the writings of Swammerdam, we find 

 him speaking of an insect which he calls, " A small beetle which, 

 having strongly fixed its foremost legs, and bent and put it* 

 head through the space between them, makes a continued noise 

 in old pieces of wood, walla, and ceilings, which is sometimes so 

 loud, that upon hearing it people have been persoaded that 

 nocturnal hobgoblins, ghosts, and fairies wandered about them." 

 He then goes on to favour us with his views regarding this odd 

 creature who raps his head so industriously on the hard board 

 between his own fore-legs, and says, " I think that this may 

 be properly called Sonicepkalus, or the noisy-headed beetle." 

 Swammerdam's evidence, therefore, agrees with that given by 

 Sir Thomas Browne, and clearly points to some member of the 

 Anobium family as the liliputian spirit* 

 rapper. In the "History of Northumber- 

 land," written by Wallis, it will be found 

 that by him the tickings of the so-called 

 death-watch are attributed clearly and dis- 

 tinctly to an anobium. Writing of it, ha 

 says, " The small scarab called death-watch 

 (ScarabcKus galeatus pulsator) is frequent 

 among dust, and in decayed rottan wood, 

 lonely and retired. It is one of the smallest 

 of the vaginopenni, of a dark brown, with ir- 

 regular light-brown spots, the belly plicated, 

 and the wings under the cases pellucid like 

 other beetles ; the helmet turned, as is sup- 

 posed, for hearing ; the upper lip hard and 

 shining. By its regular pulsations, like tha 

 ticking of a watch, it sometimes surprises 

 those that are strangers to its nature and 

 properties, who fancy its beating portends a 

 family change and the shortening of the 

 thread of life. Put into a box ii may be 

 heard and seen in the act of pulsation, with 

 a small proboscis, against the side of it, for 

 p- 2 food more probably than for hymeneal plea- 

 sure, as some have fancied." Then there 

 have been acute observers who have been of 

 opinion that the insect, in its larva or grub 

 stage of existence, possessed the power of 

 emitting ticking sounds. Amongst these we 

 may class the Dean of St. Patrick's, who 

 writes as follows on the subject : 



"A wood-worm 



That lies in old wood, like a bare iu her form ; 

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

 And chambermaids christen this worm a death- 

 watch, 



Because, like a watch, it always cries ' click ; ' 

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

 For as 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." 



Mr. Duncan Campbell, whoso memoirs were written between 

 1730 and 1740, also says, with regard to the tickings of that 

 which he evidently believes to be a grub or larva, " How many 

 people have I seen in the most terrible palpitations for months 

 together, expecting every hour the approach of some calamity, 

 only by a little worm which breeds in wainscots, and, en- 

 deavouring to eat its way out, makes a noise like the move- 

 ments of a watch." Notwithstanding the statements thus 

 advanced regarding the ability of the insect in its immature 

 form to emit or cause ticking sounds, there appears little doubt 

 that they were made in error. Mr. W. Derham, who forwarded 

 a communication on the subject of death-watches to the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions, July 21st, 1701, appears to have been 

 the first who discovered that the clear, white, and nimble little 

 creature described by Baxter (.4/ropos pulsatorius) and the little 

 beetle-like insect (Anobium ttsselatum), stated by both Swam- 



