my first visit to the Bodleian Library, in the year
1858, Dr. Bandinel being then the librarian. He was very kind, and
afforded me every facility for examining the fine collection of
"Caxtons," which was the object of my journey. In looking over a parcel
of black-letter fragments, which had been in a drawer for a long time, I
came across a small grub, which, without a thought, I threw on the floor
and trod under foot. Soon after I found another, a fat, glossy fellow,
so long ---, which I carefully preserved in a little paper box,
intending to observe his habits and development. Seeing Dr. Bandinel
near, I asked him to look at my curiosity. Hardly, however, had I turned
the wriggling little victim out upon the leather-covered table, when
down came the doctor's great thumb-nail upon him, and an inch-long smear
proved the tomb of all my hopes, while the great bibliographer, wiping
his thumb on his coat sleeve, passed on with the remark, "Oh, yes! they
have black heads sometimes." That was something to know--another fact
for the entomologist; for my little gentleman had a hard, shiny, white
head, and I never heard of a black-headed bookworm before or since.
Perhaps the great abundance of black-letter books in the Bodleian may
account for the variety. At any rate he was an Anobium.

I have been unmercifully "chaffed" for the absurd idea that a
paper-eating worm could be kept a prisoner in a paper box. Oh, these
critics! Your bookworm is a shy, lazy beast, and takes a day or two to
recover his appetite after being "evicted." Moreover, he knew his own
dignity better than to eat the "loaded" glazed shoddy note paper in
which he was incarcerated.

In the case of Caxton's "Lyf of oure ladye," already referred to, not
only are there numerous small holes, but some very large channels at the
bottom of the pages. This is a most unusual occurrence, and is probably
the work of the larva of "Dermestes vulpinus," a garden beetle, which is
very voracious, and eats any kind of dry ligneous rubbish.

The scarcity of edible books of the present century has been mentioned.
One result of the extensive adulteration of modern paper is that the
worm will not touch it. His instinct forbids him to eat the china clay,
the bleaches, the plaster of Paris, the sulphate of barytes, the scores
of adulterants now used to mix with the fibre, and, so far, the wise
pages of the old literature are, in the race against Time with the
modern rubbish, heavily