WOOD-BORING BEETLES 9 



I took two, I suppose one was the Female, that is only 

 conjecture." He is a little bit sceptical as to the pro- 

 phetic character of the tappings, saying, "This small 

 Beetle . . . being rarely heard, and not known, has 

 obtain'd the name of a Death Watch, which yet I have 

 known to be heard by many, when no mortality followed, 

 and particularly by myself, who have taken Two of the 

 same, Seven years since, without any Death following 

 that Year." A quarter of a century later, another ob- 

 server, Mr. Hugh Stackhouse, communicates a further 

 note on the subject, wisely abstaining, however, from 

 any reference to the theory of prognostications. He 

 prefaces the article by an account, almost needlessly 

 minute and circumstantial, of the way in which he gra- 

 dually tracked the insect by its ticking, till he found it 

 in the seat of a rush-bottomed chair. Here he watched 

 the little creature at work, and was so delighted with 

 his discovery that he " called up others to see it beat, 

 which they did, not without admiration." He then pro- 

 ceeds to describe the " manner of its beating." In its 

 helmet-like thorax or galea, as he calls it he sees " a 

 very notable and providential defence against such falls 

 as are frequent in rotten and decayed places." He 

 transferred his captive to a box, and kept it alive about 

 a fortnight, but was unable to get it to beat again during 

 its captivity, apparently through not knowing how to 

 induce the action, for in the Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine for 1866, the late Mr. F. Smith states that he 

 had no difficulty in getting some that he kept to tick 

 whenever he wished, by simply tapping five or six times 

 with a lead pencil upon the table close to the box in 

 which they were confined. They very shortly answered 

 the summons. Raising themselves on their front legs, 

 they commenced bobbing their heads up and down, 



