The _Crocodile_ is feigned to weep and groan like a human being in pain
and distress, in order to excite the sympathy of man, and thus allure him
into his tremendous jaws.

The _Lizard_, though now declared by naturalists to be perfectly harmless,
was long considered poisonous by the ignorant; and in Sweden and
Kamschatka, the green lizard is the subject of strange superstitions, and
regarded with horror. Newts, efts, swifts, snakes, and blind-worms are,
in popular credence, all venomous; and that the _Ear-wig_ most justly
derives its name from entering people's ears, and either causing deafness,
or, by penetrating to the brain, death itself, is with many considered an
indisputable fact. The Irish have a large beetle of which strange tales
are believed; they term it the _Coffin-cutter_, and it has some connexion
with the grave and purgatory, not now, unfortunately, to be recalled to
our memory.

It is, in Germany, a popular belief, that the _Stag-beetle_ (perhaps the
same insect) carries burning coals into houses by means of its jaws, and
that it has thus occasioned many dreadful fires. (How convenient would
_Swing_ find such a superstition in England!) The _Death-watch_
superstition is too well known to need particular notice in this paper. It
is singular that the _House-cricket_ should by some persons be considered
an unlucky, by others a lucky, inmate of the mansion: those who hold the
latter opinion consider its destruction the means of bringing misfortune
on their habitations. "In Dumfries-shire," says Sir William Jardine, "it
is a common superstition that if crickets forsake a house which they have
long inhabited, some evil will befal the family; generally the death of
some member is portended. In like manner the presence or return of this
cheerful little insect is lucky, and portends some good to the family."