372 report — 1879. 



warm climates, eatiug all kinds of objects of vegetable origin, of which several 

 instances were recorded by Dr. Hagen, including tbe destruction of a stock of 

 Bibles and prayer-books, and the professor exhibited a small Bible which had been 

 greatly gnawed by these insects. Cockroaches {Blatta orientalis) are also equally 

 destructive to books when they fall in their way, of which some sad instances were 

 recorded by Dr. Hagen. 



But it is the Death-watches (Anohium pertinax and striatum) which do the 

 greatest injury, gnawing and burrowing not only in and through the bindings, but 

 also entirely through the volume, and instances have been recorded where not 

 fewer than twenty-seven folio volumes placed together on a book-shelf had been so 

 cleanly drilled through by the larva of this beetle that a string might be run 

 through the hole made by it and the volumes raised by the string. 



Various remedies for the destruction of these insects were mentioned, and 

 especial notice was directed to a ' Report of the Commission appointed to inquire 

 into the causes of the decay of wood carvings (by tbe Anobia), and the means of 

 preventing and remedying the effects of such decay,' issued by the Science and Art 

 Department of the Committee of Council on Education at South Kensington in 

 1864, in which Report the Professor gave an account of the life-history of the 

 Anobia. 



Reference was also made to a previous Parliamentary Report on the National 

 Gallery, with the observations thereon by the late Dr. Waagen, especially with 

 reference to the state of Sebastian del Piombo's picture of the Raising of Lazarus, 

 which had been attacked by the Anobia. The Arabic MSS. in the Cambridge 

 Library, brought from Cairo by Burckhardt, and various Oriental MSS. in the 

 Bodleian Library, had been much injured by these insects. 



The remedies against the attacks of the Anobiuni upon objects of carved wood 

 must necessarily be of a different character from those used against the book-worms, 

 which are the larvte of the Anobia. In the former case, saturation with chloride 

 of mercury dissolved in methylated spirits of wine or other analogous fluid had 

 been found to be efficient, but with respect to books it was necessary to have re- 

 course to vaporisation, and experiments were recorded in which objects attacked 

 by the Anobia had been placed in a large glass-case made as air-tight as possible, 

 and small saucers with pieces of sponge saturated with carbolic acid were placed 

 at the bottom of the case, and on the recommendation of the Professor it had been 

 found successful to place the infected volumes in the Bodleian Library in a closed 

 box with a quantity of benzine in a saucer at the bottom. A strong infusion of 

 colocynth and quassia, chloroform, spirits of turpentine, expressed juice of green 

 walnuts, and pyroligneous acid have also been employed successfully. Fumigation on 

 a large scale may also be adopted by having a room made as air-tight as possible, 

 burning brimstone in it, or filling the room with fumes of prussic acid or benzine. 



Lastly, Dr. Hagen suggested that by placing an infected volume under the bell- 

 glass of an air-pump and extracting the air, the larvse would be found to be killed 

 after an hour's exhaustion. 



A Case of Disputed Identity, Haliphysema. 

 By Professor Ray Lankester, F.R.S. 



4. On Budding in the Syllidian Annelids, chiefly with reference to a 

 branched form procured by H.M.S. ' Challenger.' By W. C. McIntosh. 



Propagation by budding is a prevalent feature amongst the Ccelenterata, the 

 organisms assuming in many cases a dendritic appearance, so that the name of sea 

 trees given to them by our fishermen is by no means inappropriate to their external 

 contour. A similar condition is seen in many of the Polyzoa, and in the creeping 

 stolons of Clavelina and Perophora. In the sub-kingdom Vermes, again, naturalists 

 have long been familiar with a mode that has been called propagation by division 





