76 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [March, 



terror and apprehension felt by almost every one on hearing this 

 small insect." She herself, an entomologist, confesses to have 

 been very much annoyed at times by coming in contact with this 

 *' strange nuisance," but she was cured by an over application. 

 *' I went to pay a visit." says she, " to a friend in the country. 

 The first night I fancied I should have gone mad before morning. 

 The walls of the bed -room were papered, and from them beat, 

 as it were, a thousand watches — tick, tick, tick ! Turn which 

 way I would, cover my head under the bed-clothes to suffocation, 

 every pulse in my body had an answering tick, tick, tick ! But 

 at last the welcome morning dawned, and early I was down in 

 the library ; even here every book, on shelf above shelf, was 

 riotous with tick, tick, tick ! At the breakfast-table, beneath the 

 plates, cups and dishes, beat the hateful sound. In the parlor, 

 the withdrawing room, the kitchen, nothing but tick, tick ! The 

 house was a huge clock, with thousands of pendulums ticking 

 from morning to night. I was careful not to allow my great dis- 

 comfort to annoy others. I argued, what they could tolerate 

 surely I could; and in a few days habit had rendered the fearful, 

 dreaded ticking a positive necessity." 



Baxter, in his "World of Spirits," p. 203, most sensibly ob- 

 serves, that " there are many things that ignorance causeth mul- 

 titudes to take for prodigies. I have had many discreet friends 

 that have been affrighted with the noise called a Death-watch, 

 whereas I have since, near three years ago, oft found by trial 

 that it is a noise made upon paper by a little, nimble, running 

 worm, just like a louse, but whiter and quicker; and it is most 

 usually behind a paper pasted to a wall, especially to wainscot; 

 and it is rarely, if ever, heard but in the heat of Summer." 



In the "British Apollo," 1710, ii, No. 86, is the following 

 query: "Why Death-watches, crickets and weasels do come 

 more common against death than at any other time? Ans. — We 

 look upon all such things as idle superstitions, for were anything 

 in them, bakers, brewers, inhabitants of old houses, etc., 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, answer is given: " It is nothing but a little worm in the 

 wood." 



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

 tions, for months together, expecting every hour the approach 



