Perhaps there is another feeling about insects which ought to be mentioned beside the feeling of contempt; that is, the feeling of aversion. A great many people, ought we to write? a great many ladies and children, are ready to scream, and take to their heels if they see a poor "black beetle," racing in terror of his life for fear of _them_, and as both parties are equally frightened of one another it becomes very difficult to manage a reconciliation between them. At the sight of spiders some people are ready to faint away, and to see a little caterpillar creeping along with his magnificent coat of parti-coloured hairs, and with that funny gait which it is quite ludicrous to behold as he binds himself into a loop and walks after a fashion like no other earthly being, is enough to make their hair stand on end and their flesh to creep!
Sometimes insects are the innocent causes of alarm even to nations. Thus there is a peculiar kind of moth, upon the back of which there is very distinctly marked the appearance of what is vulgarly called a "death's head," its name being the death's-head hawk moth, represented in the adjoining cut, which was once the cause of the greatest terror to a number of persons. It was in Bretagne that a large flight of them suddenly made their appearance; at the same time a dangerous epidemic disease fell upon the inhabitants; the awful look of the poor insect, together with its strange supernatural noise, filled the ignorant people with alarm, and the disease was considered to be actually caused by the moths. Another insect, the church-yard beetle, which is of a jet black colour, is related by the great Linnæus as producing the most alarming feelings upon the minds of the superstitious and ignorant among the peasantry of Sweden.
The death-tick beetle has also a terrible reputation for frightening people. This little creature takes up its abode in decayed wood, and thus frequently makes the bed-post its dwelling-place, or ensconces itself in the wainscot of an old room. Now, when, as some entomologists tell us, it wants to give a signal to its mate, the insect begins hammering with all its might at the side of the wall, or knocks upon its little floor until the noise is heard, and the mate then begins to hammer, both producing for their size a tremendous noise, but in human ears not sounding louder than the tick of a large watch. The poor invalid, as he lies in bed perhaps very nervous and unable to bear loud conversation, hears the noisy insects knocking one to the other, and immediately his mind is filled with fears of the most groundless kind, which the nurse, if she is one of the old school, is sure to confirm by telling him that this ticking is the death-watch.