Books and their Enemies. 305 
binding is pasted, and the cloth dressed with something 
which Mr. Cockroach fancies, so he flies from his lurking 
place after you have gone to bed, and the next morning 
you find your beautiful present covered with unsightly 
blotches. When a child sucks the corners of his pi6lure- 
book, the effeft produced is exa6tly the same as the work 
of this inseft, but it by no means confines itself to the 
corners, on the contrary it goes over the whole of the 
exposed part of the cover, sucking out the dressing and ex- 
posing the rough fibres of the cloth. In preparing books 
for the tropics, the publishers should order the cloth to 
be finished by rolling, and only glue used in the binding. 
The cockroach not only attacks the cloth covers, but it 
eats the leather as well, and would probably find little 
difficulty in devouring the whole book if it could find 
nothing better. It makes very unsightly blotches on the 
edges, where it also excavates a hollow to fasten its egg- 
case, which it glues with a kind of cement, covering the 
case with the tiny bits of paper which it has gnawed from 
the hollow. When the book is consulted, about fifty 
pages are found fastened together, and after removing 
the case an unsightly pit remains. As rough edges are 
always more liable to the attacks of inse6ts, a Bibliophile 
in British Guiana has to abandon his preference 
for uncut books and get them gilt-edged if he can 
afford it. 
Wood-ants (Termites) are as destructive to books as 
to everything else that is not metal or stone. They live 
in darkness, and cannot exist on a well-lighted airy book- 
shelf. Old houses almost always have them lurking in 
the corners, ready to take advantage of a pile of 
periodicals, or a book-case placed against the wall, where 
