OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS.* NONE but those who are accustomed to
take special notice of the smaller objects around them are aware of the number and variety of the living denizens of our houses, and still more of our gardens. But there are several which force their presence upon us in such numbers, and in such a mischievous and annoying manner that they cannot possibly be overlooked, and it is this class of insect (or rather some of the more familiar among them), that Mr. Butler discusses in the present volume. Mr. E. A. Butler is well known as a writer on popular natural history, and the book before us consists of a series of articles which originally appeared in Knowledge. The chapters follow in regular and connected sequence; and although the author remarks in his preface that, "had the work been 'written for publication in its present form, the plan would have been somewhat modified, and made more systematic," we doubt if his readers will be likely to find fault with the arrangement of the book. The examples selected are chosen from the beetles, ants, wasps, moths, cockroaches, crickets, flies, gnate, fleas, bugs, &o., which make our houses their homes, or their habitual places of resort. Every garden, even in London, swarms with insects, but Mr. Butler has confined himself exclusively to those strictly belonging to the house, even passing over those which are common in granaries, ware- houses, &o., snob as the corn-moth (Tinea granella), and the various species of knot-horn moths (Phyoidce), which it seems to us would be better entitled to a place in his book than the longicorn beetles, and the wood-wasps, or horn-tails (Sires), which are never found in houses at all 'unless accidentally introduced in the larva state, in the timber of which the house is constructed. But within the limits to which the author has restricted himself, we notice no very serious omission except the cheese-fly, which certainly ought to have found a place in his book. On the other hand, Mr. Butler's work, like almost all others published on entomology of late years, has the disadvantage of being too rigidly confined to insects, When the Arachnida, Myriopoda, and Crustacea were included among insects, of course they found a place in general works on entomology, bat, now that they are relegated to separate classes, any in- formation respecting them is only to be found either in works on general natural history, or in special works on these animals. This, we think, is a great mistake, for though they are not now regarded as true insects, yet they belong to the same sub-kingdom ; and such a work as Mr. Butler's hardly appears to us complete without supplementary chapters on spiders, mites, woodlice, &c., which would have added both to its interest and usefulness, and, if written on similar lines, would not have greatly increased its bulk. The habits and structure of the insects discussed are very fully described, and illustrated by numerous woodcuts and by seven plates, the latter being highly magnified representations of portions of the eye, foot, and proboscis of the flea; the transformations of the gnat; the perfect form of the flea and bed-bug ; and the tracheae of the silk-worm and water-beetle. Every book of a general character must nowadays be more or less of a compilation, and the author has wisely drawn from numerous sources, old and new, to illustrate the various parts of his subject. Thus, when discussing the small beetle called the death-watch from the ticking sound which it produces by tapping its head against the wood of the old furniture in which it burrows, he quotes the observations made by Mr. Benjamin Allen (whose name will probably be more familiar to the general public in association with Mr. Bob Sawyer than as an entomologist) as follows :- "In the Philosophical Transactions' for 1698 is a curious paper entitled In Account of the Scarabmus Galeatus Pulsatus or, The Death Watch, taken August, 1695, by Mr. Benjamin Allen.' It is accompanied by an enormously magnified figure of the insect, and from this and the description it is evident that the Scarabsius is none other than our present acquaintance ; and the article appears to be the earliest detailed scientific account of the insect. The writer commences in a somewhat spasmodic and inconsequent style The second animal I observ'd is a Death Watch. I have taken some before this ; it is that which makes a noise resembling exactly that of a watch ; it is faithfully the very same, and liv'd four days with me, beating exactly, for I took two. I suppose one was the Female ; that is only conjecture' He is a little bit sceptical as to the prophetic character of the tap- pings, saying, 'This small beetle being rarely heard, * Oar Ilon.ohold rnsocta; an Aroma of the Insect-Pees found in Dwelling.
RI woe. By 19divard A. Butler, B.A., 1.1.e, (Lend.). London: Longnutn3 and Co. 1893.
and not known, has obtained the name of a Death-Watch, which yet I have known to be heard by many, when no mortality fol- lowed, and particularly by myself, who have taken Two of the same, Seven years since, without any death following that Tear,' There is another small insect, known as the book-louse (Atropos divinatoria), very common in neglected collections of insects, which has been stated, both by some of the older entomologists and by recent observers, to produce a similar sound. It is a very soft and delicate insect ; and it would appear to be almost impossible that it could produce any sound audible to our ears. Yet the evidence is not only con- siderable, but so substantial as to leave little room for doubt, though the fact will probably not be regarded as actually beyond question until the actual modus operandi has been discovered. Our author is sceptical on the subject, but not incredulous ; but we cannot understand why he should devote half a page to the "absurd idea" and the "vulgar and wide- spread superstition that the earwig creeps into the human ear, and causes death by effecting thence an entrance into the brain?' That the earwig creeps into the ear occasionally we know to be a positive fact, a case having occurred to a member of the family of the writer of the present review, in which the insect was dislodged by the immediate use of olive- oil poured into the ear; and when people lived more in the open air than they do now, such occurrences must have been far more common than at present, and would be alone sufficient to account for the name of the insect, without resorting to the theory (not mentioned by Mr. Butler) that the name may be due to the earlike shape of the wing of the insect. It is quite possible that in exceptional oases death might result from the presence of an earwig in the ear—perhaps by causing convulsions in the ease of infants—•but we think it more likely that earwigs may have been observed in the cavities of skulls (on a battlefield or elsewhere), and hence the idea may have originated that they ate their way into the brain through the ear. But we have been assured that a case recently occurred at Aldershot, of a man sleeping in a tent whose tympanum was actually perforated by a so-called "beetle" (possibly an earwig P) in the ear. It seems to us that it is a mischievous misapplication of terms, to apply the terms " absurd" and " superstitious" to statements which we have not been able to verify, or have not had an opportunity of verifying, but which may easily prove, when properly investi- gated, to admit of an easy and rational explanation. By so doing, we run the risk of actually retarding knowledge, by discouraging inquiry in directions which may (exceptionally, it is true, but yet in some cases) lead to very important and unexpected results. The chapter on wasps will be read with much interest, after the plague of wasps with which most parts of Europe have been troubled during the unprecedentedly hot and dry summer of 1893. Mr. Butler has done well in discriminating between the various species, and in adding woodcuts of the facial markings by which they can most readily be recog- nised.
As an example of the style of Mr. Butler's work, we will now quote his account of the mode of attack of the gnat or mos- quito, for entomologists recognise no distinction between the two :— " Now, how is this collection of weapons used P The little insect drops gently and daintily down on to the spot it has selected for its attack, and the descent of so light and airy a being is likely to leave the victim unconscious of its presence, unless he has actually seen it settle. Then the proboscis is pointed downwards, and the tiny lips that form its tip pressed against the flesh. The bristles within the gutter-like sheath being then pressed together into one solid boring implement, their common tip is forced down on the flesh, and as they enter the wound, the trough in which they were lying separates from them in the middle, and becomes bent towards the insect's breast, the two little lips all the while holding on tight. The greater part of the length of the stilettos is then plunged into the victim's flesh, and the blood is drawn up the fine interstices of the composite borer. The wound, though six instruments are concerned in making it, is extremely minute."
Occasionally, but rarely, there are allusions to foreign insects ; as, for example, the chigoe, or jigger. Whatever may be said or written about the insect-pests of England, those of foreign, and especially tropical countries, are incomparably worse. There is, perhaps, no reason to fear that the terrible chigoe, or sand-flea, of the West Indies just mentioned, should be introduced into Europe, though it has lately gained a footing on the West Coast of Africa; but we have no desire to see our houses invaded, as they easily might be, by larger and more formidable ants than the little house-ant, itself an introduction within the last sixty or seventy years ; or, worse still, by the termites, or white ants, which have gained a footing in some places in the South of France, and which are in the habit of hollowing out woodwork from within without ever coming to the surface, till some fine day, what appears to be a solid beam may crumble to dust at a touch. As regards cock- roaches, it is stated that the large species which are so trouble- some on board-ship in hot countries, usually disappear—doubt- less becoming torpid—as the vessel approaches our colder climate ; and we know too little of the causes which lead to the scarcity or abundance of insects to be able to foresee which species among those which are injurious in tropical or temperate climates might be able to establish themselves here. But, considering the immense damage which might be caused by the introduction of a new and perhaps wholly unexpected pest, a little more supervision in places like docks or warehouses, where many kinds of noxious creatures are already frequently met with, would be no superfluous or unnecessary precaution. Nor can we always tell beforehand from what quarter a new and wholly unexpected danger of this kind can arise. Insects are liable to change their habits in different countries, or when brought into contact with fresh surroundings. No one can tell why the swallow- tail butterfly, an insect which is generally common on the Continent, and the caterpillar of which is not unfrequently found in gardens feeding on carrots, should now be almost, if not exclusively, confined to the fen-districts in England ; and when Say described the Colorado potato-beetle in 1823, he had no suspicion of the terrible pest which it would become thirty or forty years later,-when advancing civilisation pushed the potato within its reach, and it began to desert the wild plants for the cultivated ones. And the spread of the American water-weed in Cambridgeshire has been traced to specimens sent from one of the earliest English localities to the Cam- bridge Botanical Gardens, from whence they were incautiously allowed to spread.
In taking leave of Mr. Butler's book, we think it will prove both useful and interesting to general readers, though we have noticed occasional errors and omissions ; and there are many points on which additional information would have been useful. But it is impossible to exhaust a subject of this kind in a book of limited dimensions.
Previous page
