XU 
JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
such a state of decay, that if the beams had not been removed, the 
floors of the house must have soon fallen down. On inquiring of 
one of the workmen, he informed me that the necessity of re- 
placing these beams, which, as the whole interior of the house re- 
quired to be taken out, must have been a very costly operation, 
was entirely owing to the ravages of these insects, and that every 
year the same process, arising from the same cause, is called for in 
several of the old houses of the city. In fact, I had myself often 
before remarked this gutting of houses for the apparent sole end of 
changing the main beams, but had supposed that their decay was 
owing to dry rot or age, until ocular inspection, as above described, 
proved to me that the mischief is wholly caused by Anobium tes- 
selalum, (for the beams, though probably above two hundred years 
old, were in all other parts as hard and sound as ever,) which thus 
annually puts the good citizens of Brussels to an expense of pro- 
bably several thousand pounds, much of which might have pos- 
sibly been always saved had the real cause of the evil been known, 
as the examination of the state of the beam ends in suspected 
cases would be easy, by removing a portion of the floors, when its 
existence would be at once seen by the large quantity of saw-dust- 
like excrement produced ; and it perhaps would not have been 
difficult to put an effectual stop to it by wetting the part thoroughly 
with a solution of corrosive sublimate. It does not, however, ap- 
pear that the possibility of arresting the mischief has ever occurred 
to the proprietors of houses, or the architects of Brussels, or that 
they have ever thought of directing the attention of the eminent 
naturalists around them to the subject, as, on mentioning it to se- 
veral of these, I did not find them at all aware of the ravages com- 
mitted by ibis little indefatigable and voracious borer. 
“ Anommatus terricnla. — M. Wesmael in his description, read last 
October before the Royal Academy of Sciences of Brussels, of this 
new Coleopterous insect, of the family of the Xylophagi, remark- 
able for being entirely destitute of eyes, states that M. Robert, who 
discovered it near Liege, found it on the under-side of planks laid 
upon earth that had been slightly stirred ; and since, when he 
placed the planks on the turf of a meadow none were taken, but 
when he had caused the turf to be previously pared off, several 
were soon caught, he conceived that its habits are subterraneous. 
I mention this fact, thinking it not unlikely that the use of similar 
traps might procure this insect in England. Its characters are, 
“ Testciceus, pilosulus , capite et ihorace vage, elytris serie punctatis. 
1. c. f lin.” 
“ Silk-worms. — At the meeting of the Royal Academy of Sciences 
