THE BISCUIT-' WEEVIL' 



113 



on drawings and paintings and the dried 

 paper of herbaria. 



The larva of this beetle is in truth a book- 

 worm. Its interest for us in the present series 

 is, however, the disastrous infestation of ships' 

 biscuits, which frequently is so severe that 



B — - c 



Fig. 31. — Early stages of Anobium paniceum. a. 

 Eggs, variable in form ; b, larva ; c, pupa ; D, asym- 

 metrical processes terminating body of pupa. This larva 

 is probably the * book-worm ' of librarians. (From David 

 Sharp, The Cambridge Natural History, vol. vi.) 



the sailors ' hard-tack ' is rendered uneatable. 

 Heating, of course, kills it ; but the biscuits are 

 still uneatable. The dead larvae are as un- 

 palatable as the living. The contrivance of 

 biscuit-tins since Marryat's time has done 

 much to lessen the evils. Tradition has it 

 that a great firm and a great fortune had 

 their foundations laid, during the first half of 

 the last century, by the accidental contiguity 

 of a baker's shop and that of a tinsmith. 



