Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
December,  1910.  J 
Insects  Destructive  to  Books. 
551 
complete  form,  with  the  results  of  the  further  experiments  now 
being  made  to  prove  the  theory  advanced,  will  be  published  later. 
Various  insects  have  "been  named  as  the  true  bookworm.  The 
insect  known  as  the  cigarette  beetle,  Sitodrepa  panic ea,  is  given  as 
the  true  bookworm  by  Prof.  L.  O.  Howard,  United  States  Ento- 
mologist ;  but  if  the  name  of  "  bookworm  "  is  given  to  the  insect 
which  causes  the  greatest  destruction,  then  this  species  will  have  to 
be  placed  quite  a  distance  down  in  the  list.  Personally,  I  will  not 
try  at  the  present  time  to  settle  the  question  as  to  the  species  which 
is  to  be  given  this  doubtful  honor. 
That  a  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  books  are  destroyed  by  in- 
sects is  not  of  recent  acquisition  may  be  gathered  from  the  writings 
of  the  ancients. 
The  earliest  reference,  according  to  Austen,1  was  rescued  from 
oblivion  by  the  lad  Salmasius,  in  1606,  when  he  discovered  the 
manuscripts  of  the  anthology  of  Cephalus,  in  the  libraries  of  the 
Counts  Palatine,  at  Heidelburg.  Among  the  fragments  in  this  col- 
lection is  one  attributed  to  Evenus,  the  sophist-poet  of  Paros,  who 
wrote  about  450  B.C. 
Aristotle  speaks  of  a  "  little  scorpion-like  creature  found  in 
books,"  which  was  evidently  a  species  of  Acarina  or  pseudoscor- 
pions.  Horace  and  Ovid  also  speak  of  the  bookworm.  Pliny,  in 
his  "  Natural  History,"  has  very  little  to  say  upon  the  subject. 
Martial,  who  lived  in  the  first,  and  Lucian,  in  the  second  century, 
A.D.,  speak  of  the  bookworm,  and  many  other  writers  mention  them ; 
but  it  was  not  until  1665,  when  Hook  in  his  "  Micographia,"  pub- 
lished an  account  and  gave  an  illustration  of  the  insect,  that  ento- 
mologists were  enabled  to  determine  with  any  accuracy  the  insect 
that  was  named  as  the  cause  of  the  destruction  of  books.  It  is 
impossible  from  Hook's  description  to  tell  what  species  was  meant ; 
but  the  illustration  accompanying  the  description  shows  that  it  must 
have  been  a  species  of  TJiysanura  or  Collembola,  commonly  known 
as  the  silver-fish  and  spring-tails. 
It  has  been  stated  that  more  books  and  papers  are  destroyed  by 
small  forms  of  life  in  one  year  than  by  fire  and  water  combined ; 
and,  from  the  facts  given  by  various  writers,  and  the  statements 
made  to  me  in  letters  by  many  librarians  and  others,  especially  where 
the  libraries  are  located  in  the  warmer  regions,  I  am  positive  that 
1  Bookworms  in  fact  and  fancy,  Popular  Science  Monthly,  1899,  vol.  55. 
