240 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



pi7jgni7ialis, whose ravages in another quarter I have 

 noticed before^, will establish itself upon the binding of 

 a book, and spinning a robe, which it covers with its 

 own excrement'', will do it no little injury. A mite 

 {Cheyletus cniditus) eats the paste that fastens the paper 

 over the edges of the binding, and so loosens it *^. I 

 have also often observed the caterpillar of another httle 

 moth, of which I have not ascertained the species, that 

 takes its station in damp old books, between the leaves, 

 and there commits great ravages ; and many a black- 

 letter rarity, which in these days of Bibliomania would 

 have been valued at its weight in gold, has been snatched 

 by these destroyers from the hands of book-collectors. 

 The little wood-boring beetles before mentioned {Ano- 

 hium 'perlinax and striaUun) also attack books, and will 

 even bore through several volumes. M. Peignot men- 

 tions an instance where, in a public library but little fre- 

 quented, twenty-seveyi folio volumes were perforated in 

 a straight line by the same insect, (probably one of 

 these species,) in such a manner that on passing a cord 

 through the perfectly round hole made by it, these 

 twenty-seven volumes could be raised at once''. The 

 animals last mentioned also destroy prints and drawings, 

 whether framed, or preserved in a porte-feuille. Our 

 collections of quadrupeds, birds, insects and plants have 

 likewise several terrible insect enemies, which without 

 pity or remorse often destroy or mutilate our most highly 

 prized specimens. Ptinus Ftir and Anihrcims Muscconim, 

 two minute beetles, are amongst the worst, especially the 



» See p. 226. " Reaum. iii. 270. 



' Schrank Emim. Ins. Aiistr. 513, 1058. 

 •^ Home's Introd. to Bib/iograjj/ii/, i. 311. 



