560 Insects. 
THE DEATH-WATCH. (Anobium tesselatum.) 
This creature is called the Death- Watch, from a super- 
stitious notion that, when its beating is heard, it is a 
sign that some one in the house is going to die. The 
insect lives in wood, and the noise is produced by its 
striking its head against whatever is near it. These 
insects, in the larva state, do a great deal of mischief to 
old furniture, in which they perforate numerous round 
holes. To enable them to do this they are furnished 
with two maxilla3 formed like two cutting pincers, with 
the help of which they bore the holes so neatly that the 
French call them vrillettes, from vrille, a gimlet. They 
also perforate books in the same way, and thus do much 
damage in old libraries : 
" Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse 
The sweetest servants of the muse ! 
His roses nipt in every page, 
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage ; 
By thee my Ovid wounded lies ; 
By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies ; 
Thy rabid teeth have half destroyed 
The work of love in Biddy Floyd ; 
They rent Belinda's locks away, 
And spoiled the Blouzelind of Gay ; 
For all, for every single deed, 
Relentless justice bids thee bleed. 
Then fall a victim to the Nine, 
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine." Pahnell. 
Sometimes two of these insects maybe heard ticking, 
answering each other ; and sometimes the Death- Watch 
may be made to tick by tapping with the finger-nail 
upon a table. These creatures imitate death with great 
exactness when they are caught, or when they think 
themselves in danger. 
