36 PTINUS. 



that celebrated work the Pseudodoxia Epidemica 

 of the learned Sir Thomas Brown, who on this 

 subject expresses himself in words like these. 

 " He that could eradicate this error from the 

 minds of the people would save from many a cold 

 sweat the meticulous heads of nurses and grand- 

 mothers*." 



A very destructive little species of Ptinus is 

 often seen in collections of dried plants, &c. &c. 

 remarkable for the ravages it commits both in its 

 larva and perfect state. The larva resembles that 

 of a beetle in miniature, being about the eighth 

 of an inch long, and of a thickish form, lying with 

 the body bent, and is of a white colour. The 

 perfect insect is very small, measuring only about 

 the tenth of an inch, and is slender, of a pale 

 yellowish chesnut colour, appearing, when magni- 

 fied, beset with small short hairs, with the wing- 

 covers finely striped by rows of small impressed 

 points or dots. The ravages of the larva are most 

 remarkable during the summer. 



The Ptinus Fur of Linnaeus is another verv de- 



*/ 



structive species. Its length is somewhat more 

 than the tenth of an inch, and its colour pale 

 chesnut-brown, sometimes marked on the wing- 

 covers by a pair of greyish bands: the antennas 

 are rather long and slender; the body remarkably 

 convex, and the thorax, when magnified, appears 



* The reader will perceive that I have repeated the history 

 of the Death- Watch from the description which I long ago 

 published in the Naturalist's Miscellany. 



