Chap. XIII.] THE FISH-INSECT. 
475 
residence in Ceylon, both on the coast and in the 
mountains, is the prevalence of damp, and the difficulty 
of protecting articles liable to injury from this cause. 
Books, papers, and manuscripts rapidly decay ; especially 
during the south-west monsoon, when the atmosphere is 
saturated with moisture. Unless great precautions are 
taken, the binding fades and yields, the leaves grow 
mouldy and stained, and letter-paper, in an incredibly 
short time, becomes so spotted and spongy as to be 
unfit for use. After a very few seasons of neglect, a 
book falls to pieces, and its decomposition attracts 
hordes of minute insects, that swarm to assist in the 
work of destruction. The concealment of these tiny 
creatures during daylight renders it difficult to watch 
their proceedings, or to discriminate the precise species 
most actively engaged; but there is every reason to 
believe that the larvse of the death-watch and numerous 
acari are amongst the most active. As nature seldom 
peoples a region supplied with abundance of suitable 
food, without, at the same time, taking measures of 
precaution against the disproportionate increase of in- 
dividuals; so have these vegetable depredators been 
provided with foes who pursue and feed greedily upon 
them. These are of widely different genera ; but in- 
stead of their services being gratefully recognised, they 
are popularly branded as accomplices in the work of 
destruction. One of these ill-used creatures is a tiny, 
tail-less scorpion {Chelifer x ), and another is the pretty 
1 Of the first of these, three claw. They are 
species have been noticed in Ceylon, Chelifer Librorum, Temp, 
all with the common characteristics „ oblongus, Temp, 
of being nocturnal, very active, very „ acaroicles, Hermann, 
minute, of a pale chesnut colour, Dr. Templeton appears to have 
and each armed with a crab-like been puzzled to account for the 
