BOSTRICHID^E — TYPOGRAPHER- BEETLES. 6 1 



anything in them, bakers, brewers, inhabitants of old houses, 

 &c., were in a melancholy condition." 



To an inquiry, ibid. vol. ii. No. 70, concerning a Death- 

 watch, whether you suppose it to be a living creature, an- 

 swer is given : " It is nothing but a little worm in the wood." 



" How many people have I seen in the most terrible pal- 

 pitations, for months together, expecting every hour the 

 approach of some calamity, only by a little worm, which 

 breeds in old wainscot, and, endeavoring to eat its way out, 

 makes a noise like the movement of a watch !" Secret 

 Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbell, 8vo. Lond. 

 1732, p. 61.1 



Authors were formerly not agreed concerning the insect 

 from which this sound of terror proceeded, some attributing 

 it to a kind of wood-louse, others to a spider. 



M. Peiguot mentions an instance where, in a public 

 library that was but little frequented, twenty-seven folio 

 volumes were perforated in a straight line by one and the 

 same larva of a small insect (Anobium pertinax ov A. atria- 

 turn?) in such a manner that, on passing a cord through the 

 perfectly round hole made by the insect, these twenty-seven 

 volumes could be raised at once.^ 



Bostrichidae — Typographer-beetles. 



The Typographer -beetle, Boatrichus typographus, is 

 so called on account of a fancied resemblance between the 

 paths it erodes and letters. This insect bores into the fir, 

 and feeds upon the soft inner bark; and in such vast num- 

 bers that 80,000 are sometimes found in a single tree. The 

 ravages of this insect have long been known in Germany 

 under the name of Wurm trdkniHn — decay caused by worms ; 

 and in the old liturgies of that country the animal itself is 

 formally mentioned under its common appellation. The 

 Turk. About the year 1G65, this pest was particularly 

 prevalent and caused incalculable mischief. In the begin- 

 ning of the last century it again showed itself in the Ilartz 

 forests ; it reappeared in 1757, redoubled its injuries in 



1 Brand's Pop. Antig., iii. 226-7. 



2 Home's Inlrod. to Blbllog., i. 311. 



