BOOK-LOUSE AND SILVER-FISH INSECT 323 



untouched being that on which the specimen was actually 

 resting, which was of course inaccessible. Labels of 

 ordinary common writing-paper had not been attacked. 

 The damage done was a serious one, as the whole col- 

 lection had to be re-labelled, and in such cases the loss 

 sustained may be far more serious than the mere cost of 

 a set of cards, since, the use of the specimens depending 

 to a great extent upon the details of locality, &c., if 

 these be obliterated and not recoverable, their value 

 is much diminished. Another instance is from the 

 Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. Here some 

 white labels had been printed with a red border, the 

 colour of which was due to red lead. The white parts 

 of the labels were eaten away, but all the red parts 

 were left untouched, the pattern being sometimes neatly 

 picked out. A third instance occurred in a museum in 

 New South Wales, where some hundreds of labels were, 

 after only fifteen months, rendered useless. It is 

 evident that loose papers are much more obnoxious to 

 the attacks of the silver fish than those that are 

 closely packed, there not being room in the latter case 

 for so large an insect to creep between the leaves ; 

 hence an obvious and useful precaution would be to 

 keep all separate papers, where possible, tightly packed 

 together. 



The case of books is particularly unfortunate, for the 

 wood-loving beetle, Anobium, which makes furniture 

 worm-eaten, will also attack the covers and leaves of 

 books, boring holes in them ; but it does not like starch, 

 hence it has been proposed to use paste made of that 

 substance as pure as possible in binding books. But it 

 now appears that by so doing they will be made, though 

 distasteful to Anobium, only all the more acceptable to 

 Lepisma. It does not appear to be always so easy to 



