DEATH-WATCH. 241 



doing this, a death-watch will frequently answer the 

 call, if within hearing.* Where they beat long in 

 one place, they make a brown spot to the size of a 

 silver penny ; and the paper of the room in which I 

 resided was covered with such spots to a consider- 

 able extent. 



Unless these insects are numerous in a house, it 

 is not very easy to get a sight of them, since they 

 generally keep behind the wainscoting or paper, and 

 are, moreover, very similar in colour to old wood. 

 In this neighbourhood I have occasionally found 

 them in decayed willows, but very rarely observed 

 them in houses at all. 



It is worth noticing that the Anobium tessellatum, 

 which is the insect above spoken of, is not the only 

 species of this genus that beats in the manner de- 

 scribed. A similar noise, but much fainter, and not 

 so readily distinguished, is made by the A. striatum^ 

 the species which is so destructive to old furniture, 

 and common in houses everywhere. 



TURNIP WEEVIL. J 



IN the autumn of 1840, the turnips in this neigh- 

 bourhood were greatly affected by the attacks of a 

 small weevil, which causes the root to rise every- 

 where into knobs and excrescences. A farmer 

 brought me several roots thus distorted, and in ap- 



* This fact is mentioned by Kirby and Spence (vol. ii. 1st 

 edit. p. 387) ; the above statement, however, rests on my own 

 trial of the experiment. ) Steph. Man. p. 201. 



f Ceuterhynchus sulcicollis, Steph. Man. p. 224. 



M 



