Four forcipes of a deathwatch beetle
Date
18 March 1695
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p3
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 315mm
width (page): 195mm
width (page): 195mm
Subject
Content object
Description
A tiny drawing of four forcipes of a Deathwatch, in a letter about a 'Deathwatch' (deathwatch beetle) and a 'Gall bee' (gall wasp) by Benjamin Allen at Braintree, Essex. The letter was read to the Royal Society on 18 March 1695. The letter was printed as B. Allen, ‘An account of a gall bee, and the death-watch’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 20, no. 245 (October 1698), pp. 375-78.
Object history
18 March 1695, 'There was read a Paper of one Mr Benjamin Allen of Braintry [sic for Braintree] in Essex, giving the description of the Insect commonly call'd the Death watch, which he names Scaraboeus Galeatus pulsator: as also of a sort of Bee, which he found in an Aleppo Gall nut, and he observes that these Bees are not the only animals that live in Galls, but that there are several other species' (JBO/9/221).
Fig. 1: gall bee, figs 2-4 (not numbered in the engraving): death watch beetle, in B. Allen, ‘An account of a gall bee, and the death-watch’, Phil. Trans. vol. 20, no. 245 (October 1698), pp. 375-78.
Fig. 1: gall bee, figs 2-4 (not numbered in the engraving): death watch beetle, in B. Allen, ‘An account of a gall bee, and the death-watch’, Phil. Trans. vol. 20, no. 245 (October 1698), pp. 375-78.
Associated place