fl6 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Capable of making a loud noise. 



ii * - - ' . . i . 



time, in order to avoid the inconveniences of 

 frost, they bury themselves deep in dust. 



These little animals are in considerable num- 

 bers during the summer months; but, when dis- 

 turbed, they run so nimbly into a hiding-place 

 as not often to be remarked. When thev are 



p 



disturbed, they are very shy in making their 

 tickings ; but if they can be viewed without being 

 alarmed by noise, or moving the place where they 

 are, they will not only beat freely but even an- 

 swer any person's beating with his nail. At 

 every stroke their body shakes, or seems affected 

 as by a sudden jerk; and these jerks succeed 

 each other so quickly that it requires great 

 steadiness to perceive with the naked eye that 

 the body has any motion. They are scarcely 

 ever heard to beat before July, and never later 

 than the sixteenth of August, ft appears strange 

 that so small an animal should be able to make a 

 noise so loud as is frequently to be heard -from 

 this ; sometimes equal to that of the strongest 

 Seating watch. Dr. Derham, who examined 

 and first described this species, says, he had often 

 heard the noise, and in pursuing it had found 

 nothing but these insects, which he supposed in~ 

 capable of producing it; but one day,. by finding 

 that the noise proceeded from a piece of paper 

 loosely folded and lying in a good light in his 

 fctudy window, he viewed it through, and with a 

 microscope observed, to his great astonishment, 

 gee of them ia the very act of beating. In some 



