BEETLES. 355 



The species of Ptinidje are generally small ; their antennas are variable in form 

 and place of insertion, and have from nine to eleven joints ; the head is quite retrac- 

 tile, so much so as to be often protected by the prothorax ; the elytra are entire. The 

 food-habits of this family are very diversified; both larvas and imagos show a prefer- 

 ence for dead animal or vegetable matter, although living plants do not escape their 

 attacks. The larvae eat drugs, even devouring capsicum, tobacco, allspice, and other 

 material not -generally acceptible to insects ; they also bore in both living and dead 

 fungi, bark, twigs, roots, and wood of many kinds ; and one species, Catorama zem 

 from the Barbadoes, lives somewhat after the manner of JBruchidoe, in maize. 



A common beetle belonging to this family, that attacks apple trees in the middle 

 United States, is Amphicerus bicaudatiis, which is about 0.3 of an inch long, of a 

 cylindrical, slender form, and of a dark-brown color. Its specific name is derived 

 from the fact that the males have two small thorns projecting from the posterior end 

 of the body. This species does not, in all probability, breed in young twigs of apple, 

 although it may often be found in them, head downward, in burrows which occupy • 

 one or two inches of the pith of the twigs, and extend downward from an opening by 

 which the beetle has entered the twig. These burrows are used only for hibernation, 

 and the larval history of this beetle is not yet known. Similar injuries to those which 

 A. bicaudatus cause in apple twigs are also produced by the same species of beetle in 

 pear, peach, and grape twigs. In Europe beetles of the genera, Apate and lAnoxylon, 

 closely related forms to Amphicerus, attack grape twigs, as well as the bark and wood 

 of numerous trees. 



Lasioderma serricorne, a small species of this family, eats, as larva, capsicum and 

 dried tobacco. Zi. Iceve attacks stems and leaves of dried tobacco, often doing much 

 damage to them. The former is found in both Europe and America; 'the latter is 

 European. Catorama, of which one species has been mentioned as eating maize, 

 differs from Lasioderm.a in not having serrate antennas. C. tabaci attacks cigars in 

 Cuba, and C. sallei, from the West Indies, undergoes its metamorphoses in the pods 

 of a plant closely like Saint-John's-bread. 



In Anobium, the form is elongated, somewhat cylindrical ; the eleven-jointed 

 antennas are inserted just in front of the eyes, and the metasternum is deeply excavated 

 in front. These little beetles, which are generally black or brown in coloration, and 

 about 0.25 of an inch long, have received the name of death-watch on account of a 

 peculiar ticking sound which they produce in the wood of houses, a sound which was 

 supposed, by superstitious people, to presage death to some member of the household 

 where it was heard. The sound itself consists of from six to twelve sharp, distinct 

 ticks, at nearly as regular intervals as the ticks of a clock ; then a pause of a minute 

 or more occurs, and the sound is repeated, often in another locality from that where 

 it was first heard. As this ticking is generally emitted when there is no other dis- 

 turbing noise, often in the stillest part of the night, one can scarcely wonder that 

 people who do not know its cause should listen to it, perhaps while watching at the 

 sick-bed of a friend, with hushed breath, and should associate its sounds with death. 

 The sounds are really, however, only signals by one beetle to discover another of its 

 species ; probably, as in many other insect-noises, they have a sexual significance, and 

 serve to guide one sex to the other. At any rate, by deftly imitating their call by 

 snapping with the finger-nail upon a piece of hard wood, the beetles can be deceived 

 into repeatedly answering your telegraphic message. The mode by which the beetle 

 produces its sound was first observed by Swammerdam, the distinguished Dutch 



