LEPISMA. 
407 
The nature of this insect appears to have been 
singularly mistaken by that ingenious observer 
Mr. Henry Baker, who, in his work entitled 
“ The Microscope made easy,” calls it “ the 
Nymph of the Clothes or Book-Moth.” This 
error perhaps originated from the description of 
the animal in Hook’s Micrographia, where it is 
entitled “ the small silver-coloured Book-Worm,” 
and, according to the loose mode of description 
common at the period of that work, is called ‘‘ a 
small, white, silver-shining Worm or Moth.” It 
is supposed by Dr. Hook to be the animal “ which 
corrodes and eats holes through the leaves and 
covers.” Dr, Hook thus continues. “ This animal 
probably feeds upon the paper and covers of 
books, and perforates in them several small round 
holes, finding, perhaps, a convenient nourishment 
in those husks of hemp and flax which have passed 
through so many scourings, washings, dressings, 
and dryings, as the parts of old paper must ne- 
cessarily have suffered; the digestive faculty, it 
seems, of these little creatures being able yet fur- 
ther to work upon those stubborn parts, and re- 
duce them into another form; and indeed, when 
I consider what a heap of saw-dust or chips this 
little creature (which is one of the teeth of Time) 
conveys into its entrails, I cannot chuse but re- 
member and admire the excellent contrivance of 
Nature, in placing in animals such a fire as is con- 
tinually nourished and supplyed by the materials 
conveyed into the stomach, and fomented by the 
bellows of the lungs; and in so contriving the 
