DEATH is generally considered as the separation of the soul from the body; in which sense it stands opposed to life, which consists in the union of both.

Physicians usually define death as consisting of a total stoppage of the circulation of the blood, and a cessation of the animal and vital functions consequent thereon; as respiration, sensation, and the like.

Drothers of Death, a denomination usually given to religious persons of the order of St Paul, the first hermit. They are called “brothers of death,” fratres a morte, on account of the figure of a death’s head which they were always to have in their custody, to remind them of the certainty of death. This order, by its constitutions made in 1620, does not seem to have been established long before Pope Paul V. In 1621, Louis XIII. permitted them to settle in France. The order was probably suppressed by Pope Urban VIII.

DEATH-Watch, in Natural History, a little insect famous for a ticking noise, like the beat of a watch, which the vulgar have long regarded as a presage of death in the family where it is heard; and hence it is also called pediculus fatidicus, mortisaga, pulsatorius, &c.

There are two kinds of death-watches. Of the first we have a good account by Mr Allen in the Philosophical Transactions. It is a small beetle, five sixteenths of an inch long, of a dark-brown colour, spotted, and having pellucid wings under the vagina, a large cap or helmet on the head, and two antennae proceeding from beneath the eyes, and doing the office of proboscides. The part it beats withal, he observed, was the extreme edge of the face, which he calls the upper lip, the mouth being protected by this bony part, and lying out of view underneath.

The above account is confirmed by Dr Derham; with this difference, that instead of ticking with the upper lip, he observed the insect draw back its mouth, and beat with its forehead. That author had two death-watches, a male and a female, which he kept alive in a box several months; and could bring one of them to beat whenever he pleased, by imitating its beating. By means of this ticking noise he could frequently invite the male to get up upon the other in the way of coition. When the male found he had mounted in vain, he would get off, beat very eagerly, and then get up again; hence the ingenious author concludes that these insects woo one another by means of such pulsations, and thus find out and invite each other to copulation.

The second kind of death-watch is an insect in appearance quite different from the first. The former only beats seven or eight strokes at a time, and these quickly; the latter will beat several hours together without intermission, but his strokes are more leisurely, and resemble the beat of a watch. This latter is a small grayish insect, much like a louse when viewed with the naked eye.

It is commonly found in all parts of a house in the summer months; and it is very nimble in running to shelter, and shy of beating when disturbed; but it will beat very freely before you, and also answer the beating, if you can view it without giving it disturbance, or shaking the place where it lies. The author cannot say whether they beat on any other substance, but he never heard their noise except in or near paper. As to their noise, the same person is in doubt whether it be made by their heads, or rather snouts, against the paper; or whether it be not effected after some such manner as grasshoppers and crickets make their noise. He inclines to adopt the former opinion. The reason of his doubt is, that he observed the animal’s body to shake and give a jerk at every beat, but could scarcely perceive any part of its body touch the paper. But its body is so small and so near the paper, and its motion in ticking is so quick, that he thinks it might be so without his perceiving it. The ticking, as in the other, he judges to be a wooing act; having observed another, after much beating, come and make advances to the beating insect, who, after some offers, left off beating, and got upon the back of the other. When they were joined, he left off again; and they continued some hours joined tail to tail, like dog and bitch in coition. Whether this insect changes its shape, and becomes another animal, or not, he could not say; though he had some reason to suspect that it becomes a sort of fly. It is at first a minute white egg, much smaller than the nits of lice, though the insect is nearly as big • as a louse. In March it is hatched, and creeps about [7:7:661]with its shell on. When it first leaves its shell, it is even smaller than its egg; though that be scarcely discernible without a microscope. In this state it is perfectly like the mites in cheese. From the mite state these insects grow gradually to their mature perfect state. When they become like the old ones, they are at first very small, but run about much more swiftly than before.