Book-Lovers. 89 
closets and pantries, and feed upon sugar and cake and 
pastry, but has latterly taken to bookcases, where it leads 
an easy, comfortable life, without fear of molestation. 
So delicately constructed are the Lepismas, and so seem- 
ingly feeble the breath of life which animates their frail houses 
of clay, that nature has endowed them with qualities of mind 
and body which eminently fit them for the part they have 
to play in the world. She has made them lovers of darkness 
rather than light, endowed them with keenness of vision and 
hearing truly wonderful, and given them a celerity of move- 
ment which enables them to outstrip in speed the fleetest 
of their insect-enemies, and even to baffle the well-directed 
efforts of man for their destruction. The silver-coated armor 
with which they are invested is so glossy and smooth that 
they can slip into a crevice in the wall or floor with the 
utmost ease and facility. From their actions it would seem 
that they were always on the alert, for when peril is imminent 
they do not run aimlessly about for a place of security, but 
know just where to find it with the least possible expenditure 
of time and physical strength. Every nook and cranny of 
their appropriated domain is as well known to these very 
humble of God’s creatures as some forest-tract of country to 
one skilled in wood-craft. Never have I studied the behavior 
of Lepisma that I have not been deeply impressed with the 
intelligence of its actions. There have always been displayed 
a purpose and an aim, which showed as plainly as could be 
that no blind instinct was the cause of a conduct so rational 
and human-like. 
