fact that no less than eleven different groups have members that are
directly or indirectly accused of injuring books and bindings. The
number of species in each group ranges from one to eleven, making a
total of over thirty different species. In addition to these there are
others against which the evidence is at best only circumstantial. It
is not necessary to say that none of these bear any resemblance in any
period of their existence to worms, and that the term bookworms is a
misnomer. The word has become so firmly fixed in literature, both in
its figurative and literal sense, that its misuse will no doubt
continue.
The larger number of these are included in the class _Hexapoda_, or
insects. Two species belong to the class _Arachnida_, which embraces
the scorpions, spiders, mites, etc. One of these, _Chelifer
cancroides_, known as the "book scorpion," although not a true
scorpion, belongs to the order _Pseudoscorpiones_, and is probably
what Aristotle had in mind when speaking of the "little scorpionlike
insects found in books." The other species is known as _Cheyletus
eruditus_, of the order _Acarina_, or "cheese mites." These two are
known to be carnivorous in their habits, and there is some question as
to whether they haunt books for the purpose of feeding on them or on
other creatures to be found there.
Of those in the class _Hexapoda_, which comprises all the other known
book pests, there can be no question as regards their destructiveness.
Many are known about the house by the name of the article they are
most frequently found in, and unless driven by a lack of those things
more to their liking, they do not invade the literary sanctum. Some
are so cosmopolitan in their tastes that they seem to take whatever is
most convenient, whether it be books or boots, pepper or poison.
As has been said, the earliest observation of value was made by Hooke
on _Lepisma_, commonly known as "fish moth" or "silver fish," from its
resemblance, in shape and coating, to a fish; also as "bristle tail,"
from its caudal appendages. They are found in closets, cupboards, and
clothes baskets. Opinions have differed as to its destructiveness to
books, but the weight of evidence is against the insect. It seeks the
paste and sizing used about books, and this leads it to attack
bindings and labels. There is a theory that paste made from pure
starch is not to their liking, but this is not substantiated by
observation.
Termites or "white ants," another misnomer, since they are not true
ants, are also well-known ravagers whose deeds of destruction assume a
serious aspect, especially in the tropics. "Humboldt," according to
Shimer, "informs us that in all equinoctial America, where the white
ants abound, it is infinitely rare to find papers or books that go
back fifty or sixty years." Their destruction to timber has been the
cause of serious accidents, at one time so weakening the supports of a
dwelling that a whole dinner party was precipitated from the third
floor to the basement. These pests belong to the order _Isoptera_. The
American species is known as _Termes flavipes_, and several
well-authenticated cases of their having done serious injury to books
and bindings in this country are recorded. As the chief sustenance of
these insects seems to be dead wood, it may be that the increased use
of wood in paper will make modern books, which bookworms are said to
scorn, more tempting than ever to them.
By opening quickly some old book which has lain long unused, one may
see tiny pale creatures with knowing black eyes scurrying across the
pages. These insects are known as "book lice," or by the Germans as
"_Staublaus_" (dust louse). Entomologists have given them the
high-sounding name _Atropos divinatoria_. They belong to the family
_Psocidæ_, of the order _Corrodentia_. Some writers, beginning with
William Derham, in 1701, are of the opinion that this delicate little
creature makes a noise like unto that of the coleopterous insect
called "death-watch." These little fellows are said to have stout jaws
with which they do damage to books, dried plants, etc., "nibbling away
the leaves and covers of the former."
Of all the insects that injure books perhaps the best known are the
cockroaches, scientifically called _Blattidæ_, of which there are five
species whose bookish habits are unquestioned. Many instances of
serious damage done by them to the bindings of books are on record,
the most important, perhaps, being that of the Natural History Museum
Reports, at Albany, where Mr. J. A. Lintner found a hundred volumes or
more so badly damaged by roaches that they could not be moved without
coming to pieces. The United States Senate Reports, bound in cloth and
leather, some fresh and new, have been badly damaged at Washington, in
the efforts of these pests to get at the paste with which the covers
were fastened to the volumes. The species known to commit these
depredations are the "Croton bug" (_Blatta germanica_), smaller than
the others, but considered by some writers as the worst pests of the
family; a little larger species, called _Periplaneta orientalis_; and
a large species, known as _Periplaneta americana_, or _Kakerlac_.
Against two other species, _Blatta australasiæ_ and _Blatta gigantea_,
there is not so much evidence.
Among the moths, or millers, order _Lepidoptera_, are found several
species which injure books, the best known being the _Aglossa
pinguinalis_, commonly called "grease moth." The larva of this species
is at first a pale, flesh-colored grub, but as it matures it becomes
quite black. It injures bindings by constructing long "silken tubes,"
in which it remains until full fed. Sometimes they spin a web between
the volumes, "gnawing small portions of the paper with which to form
their cocoons." This species belongs to the family _Pyralididæ_. Of
the family _Oecophoridæ_ two species are known to injure books:
_Acompsia pseudospretella_, and an undetermined species of
_Depressaria_. Under the name _Oecophora_, William Blades describes
the ravages of the former on two leaves of a "Caxton," and accompanies
his remarks with a photographic illustration of the damaged leaves,
from which it is at once seen how irregular is the gnawing of this
species. The newspaper account of the finding of bookworms in the
Lenox Library not long ago classed the larvæ found with this species.
The largest number of book-destroying insects are found among the
beetles, of the order _Coleoptera_. To this group belong the "book
borers." The species thus far considered have been more or less
dilettantes in literature. The beetles, however, seem possessed with a
true spirit of investigation, and when they undertake a piece of work
in a serious fashion they go to the bottom of it, sticking close to
the line laid down. This characteristic distinguishes these insects
from all others, and makes it comparatively easy to determine when
they have been at work in a worm-eaten volume. No less than sixteen
different species of this order have been either detected in this
work, or such strong circumstantial evidence has been found against
them, that there is little doubt as to their guilt. Some insects seem
to destroy books for the sheer want of something better to do; some do
so in seeking the paste and sizing used in and about the books;
others because the leather bindings are desirable material in which
to undergo transformation; and, again, others haunt book shelves and
books in search of prey in the form of living creatures. But among the
beetles are found tiny little grubs that seem to have a genuine intent
to destroy; that set out deliberately to wreak vengeance on man's
record of his thoughts, deeds, and discoveries, and, as if knowing the
means which man uses to destroy, have sought to imitate him in the
effects produced. As a result we find books filled with small, round,
shotlike holes strongly suggesting the results which might follow from
the use of the family Bible by the restless boy as a target for his
first shotgun.
The book-destroying beetles are all grouped under three families:
_Dermestidæ_, _Scolytidæ_, and _Ptinidæ_. The _Dermestidæ_ include the
"flower beetles" and the well-known "carpet bug." The species of which
there can be no doubt as to its disposition to pierce book bindings is
_Anthrenus varius_, which Glover says "is a very pretty insect when
examined under a magnifying glass, being beautifully marbled or
variegated with black and gray." Another member of this family,
against which there is less evidence, is _Dermestes chinensis_, so
named by Dr. L'Herminier, of Guadeloupe, who reported a loss of nearly
four hundred volumes from its ravages. Erichson believes this to have
been the well-known _Anobium paniceum_. _Dermestes lardarius_ and
_Attagenus pellio_ are others of this family mentioned in the same
category.
The family _Ptinidæ_ includes two groups, _Anobium_ and _Ptinus_, the
first being generally known as the "death-watch," from the peculiar
sound, like the tick of a watch, which is produced by striking against
a hard substance with their tiny jaws. Superstitious persons have long
considered this noise an omen of death, hence the name. Instead of an
ill omen, this noise proves itself to be a love-call between the
sexes, and may be imitated accurately enough to elicit a response. One
of the best known of these beetles is called _Sitodrepa panicea_,
generally known in Europe as _Anobium paniceum_. It is a cosmopolitan
feeder, having a reputation in several different fields of activity,
commercial and scientific as well as literary. To druggists it is
known as "the worm," and their stock of ginger, rhubarb, Cayenne
pepper, nux vomica, and belladonna root all appear to be equally to
its liking, tin foil being no formidable barrier to its persistent
search. Leather dealers have suffered from the destruction wrought by
this little fellow to such an extent that whole cases of boots and
shoes, carriage trimmings, etc., have been ruined. To this species
belongs the insect found a few years ago at work in a volume of
Dante's Divine Comedy, which had been sent to Cornell University
library from Florence. The larvæ are about three to four millimetres
in length, of a dirty-white color, head tinged with brown, and black
mouth parts, with the abdomen strongly curved. The adult is a small,
cylindrical, brown beetle from two to three millimetres in length,
with head bent down and wing covers marked with fine punctate striæ.
Professor Poey made extensive observations of an insect in Cuba which
had destroyed about four thousand volumes. He called it _Anobium
bibliothecarum_, and Schwartz thinks the injury reported by Herminier
from Guadeloupe should be attributed to the same species. _Anobium
striatum_ and _pertinax_ have long been known to injure books by their
"gnawing and burrowing," not only in and through the bindings, but
also entirely through the volumes. _Nicobium hirtum_, a native of
southern Europe, where its larvæ have been found doing like injury, is
only locally abundant, and for this reason has never been considered a
serious library pest. Schwartz says, "In one way or another the insect
has found its way to North America, but has always been regarded as a
great rarity with us."
The _Ptinus_ group embraces _Ptinus fur_, _Ptinus mollis_, _Ptinus
brunneus_, and _Ptilinus pectinicornis_, called by Leunis
"_Bücherbohrer_." According to Butler, a peculiarity of this
genius--that of dissimilarity of shape between the sexes--is well
illustrated by the _P. fur_, the male being almost cylindrical, the
female inflated or rounded at the sides; so much variation that they
might be taken for two different insects. _Ptinus brunneus_, although
similar to _P. fur_, is distinguished from it by being wholly of a
light-brown color and destitute of whitish bands on the wing covers.
Some writers speak of this species as the "book beetle," while
_Sitodrepa_ is spoken of as the "spice beetle." Dr. Henry Shimer makes
the following statement regarding their method of boring: "They
usually operate in leather-bound or half-bound volumes by boring
galleries along in the leather.... They usually bore along quite under
the surface of the leather, cutting it almost through; occasionally a
small round hole penetrates through the leather to the outer surface."
One of the most famous cases on record of insects boring through books
is that reported by M. Peignot, in which he states that twenty-seven
folio volumes were pierced through in so straight a line that a cord
might be passed through them and all the volumes raised by means of
it. Different writers give the credit of this feat to different
members of this group, so that the most that can be said is that it
was the work of some member of the _Ptinidæ_.
In the family _Scolytidæ_ only one species belongs to the book
ravagers. It is known as _Hypothemus eruditus_, and was described by
Westwood in 1836 as "pitchy black, the head of the same color,
entirely concealed from above by the front thorax." It is very minute
in size, being about one twentieth of an inch in length. So far as
its depredations have been observed it confines its work to the
bindings of books, making furrows in all directions much as it does in
the sap wood of dead trees. The strong resemblance of its burrowing to
the gouging done by an engraver's chisel has given to this family the
name of "engraver beetles."
A review of the different families of insects whose habits under
favorable conditions lead them to infest books and bindings will show
them to be more or less well defined according to their feeding
habits. The book scorpions and mite, _Cheyletus eruditus_, which, as
we have seen, do not come under the head of insects, are primarily
carnivorous, and their presence in books may be due to the fact that
they find there animal as well as vegetable food. This is certainly
true of the book scorpion, which feeds on mites, book lice, and other
small insects. The "fish moths" or "silver fish," the "book lice," and
the "cockroaches" can have no other reason for infesting books than
their liking for farinaceous substances such as are used in and about
the bindings and labels of books. For this reason the damage done by
them is largely confined to the exterior or interior of the bindings,
and only so much of the book itself is injured as comes in their way
in their search for food. The "white ants" feed principally on wood,
and in and about books there is more or less wood fiber which would be
to the liking of these voracious feeders. The moths and beetles are
the burrowers and borers. They seek retired places in which to lay
their eggs where the larvæ will be surrounded with food for their
growth. The moths and some of the beetles are more given to burrowing
in the bindings, keeping close to the outer surface for the purpose,
it is thought, of making it easy for the imago to emerge after the
change is completed; while others bore straight tunnels often from
cover to cover.
A natural conclusion for one who has gone over the literature of
book-injuring pests to reach is that the many persons that have been
industriously looking for the bookworm, as well as those that have
reported the finding of isolated specimens, some dead, some alive,
have had in mind the one creature which bored holes in books. The
frequent use of the terms "genuine bookworm," "the real bookworm,"
etc., reveals the fact that the users of these phrases approached the
subject with a preconceived idea of the kind of creature they should
find to account for the ravages only too apparent on scores of volumes
which pass through the hands of booksellers and book keepers. To many
the boring beetles are the only creatures which are rightfully called
bookworms, and in their search other book pests have not been taken
into account.
HYDROPHOBIA IN BAJA CALIFORNIA.
BY DANE COOLIDGE.
When, in 1884, Pasteur discovered the true nature and cure of
hydrophobia, he dispelled the accumulated superstition of centuries
regarding this mysterious and dreaded disease. But in some countries
where hydrophobia exists his cure is not yet known, and the old
superstitions remain. While collecting mammals near San José del Cabo,
in the cape region of Lower California, two summers ago, I found the
country people very fearful of wild animals, especially of skunks and
coyotes. My Mexican boy, whom I had sent on an errand, remained
perched half the afternoon in a thorny mesquite tree because he had
seen a coyote and was afraid it was _rabioso_. But they fear the
skunks most of all because of their habit of approaching men in the
night while they sleep, and biting them on the toe or ear, or any
exposed part. In defense, unusual precautions are taken to exclude
them. The windows of the houses are barred with iron, and the doors
are made in halves, horizontally, so that the lower part may be closed
to keep out animals and snakes without interfering with free
ventilation. The common people, who live in brush houses, blockade
their doorways at night, and rely on their cur dogs to attack any
animal which may come near.
Notwithstanding all this evidence, and innumerable ghastly stories, I
remained a month in the country, at the rancho of Francis Pazik, a
very intelligent and well-educated Bohemian, without seeing any rabid
animals. Then, one evening just at sundown, a crowd of men came up the
path, leading one of Pazik's mules and dragging the carcass of a
skunk. They said that it had come out into the open field where the
mule was picketed and bitten it on the hind foot. All of them insisted
that it was rabid, and cited its extreme emaciation as a proof. The
young man who dragged it showed me his great toe, half burned off with
blue vitriol, and told me that a skunk had bitten him there two months
before, and the doctors had burned it. These native "doctors" are
uneducated men who live on the superstition of the people. In the case
of hydrophobia their methods are characteristic. There are in the cane
fields little insect-eating animals called shrews which, in that
country, give off a scent so like that of a skunk that Pazik has
hunted them out with his dogs in the night by mistake. The "doctors"
pay as much as two dollars apiece for shrews on urgent occasions, and,
mixing their bodies with herbs and roots, form a concoction which they
claim will ward off hydrophobia. Besides this, they also bleed the
patient and cauterize the wound.
According to the Mexicans, there are two kinds of rabies: that
affecting the head and that affecting the stomach. When animals have
_rabia_ in the head they become stupid and move about slowly, biting
at everything they see or touch. They are not violent, and become very
thin. But when they have rabies in the stomach it gives them great
pain, and they bark and howl and race about frantically, chasing other
animals and tearing them. Mr. Cipriano Fisher, of Santa Catarina, told
me of his experience with a coyote which had rabies in the stomach. He
was hunting deer at Cape San Lucas, and had killed two. Carrying the
smaller one and his gun to camp, he returned unarmed, except for the
knife which every one wears in that region, to bring in the other. As
he went down a deep cañon he heard a coyote ahead, howling in the
peculiar way which he knew to be characteristic of the _rabioso_. All
the hunters claim they can recognize the howling of a rabid coyote,
and they say that no other animal will answer it or go near it. The
howling approached rapidly. Knowing that he could not escape by
running back uphill, nor kill it with his knife without being bitten,
he stepped quickly into the brush and cut a long green club. As he
turned back into the open place he saw the coyote down the cañon,
leaping up and snapping at the air. When the coyote saw him it broke
into a furious run up the trail, and when, as he says, about thirty
feet away, made a flying leap at his face. He jumped to one side,
struck the rabid animal in the back of the head as it passed, and
killed it with the one blow.
Skunks are particularly dangerous to persons who sleep out at night.
J. Ellis McLellan, a field collector of the United States Department
of Agriculture, whom I met at San José del Cabo, told me of an
unpleasant experience he had with a skunk while coming down from La
Paz. On account of the heat he had ridden in the night as far as Agua
Caliente, where he stopped near a ranch house to sleep till morning.
Although the night was warm, he covered his head with a _serape_ for
protection from insects and wandering animals. Early in the morning he
was awakened by a twitching at his blanket and, raising the _serape_,
saw a skunk biting and jerking at it. Realizing the gravity of the
situation, he reached for his heavy knife, and then, suddenly throwing
aside the _serape_, he leaned forward and put his whole force into one
blow. As he ducked under the blanket again, for protection, the dogs
from the house rushed out in a body and pounced upon the dying skunk,
which they worried on top of McLellan until the ranch people beat them
off. When skunks bite at men's toes and ears, or at blankets in this
way, it is taken as an indication that they are rabid.
Shortly after this I saw a young man at Miraflores who had just been
seized with hydrophobia. Two months before he had been bitten on the
great toe by a skunk as he lay asleep in his house at Agua Caliente,
but had shown no symptoms of the disease until that day, when he
suddenly began to bite at the door jamb in the store at Miraflores.
They put him into the brick jail, where he soon became very violent.
When I went down to the jail the next morning I found a group of
Mexicans about the huge wooden door, which was chained fast and tied
with _riatas_ in addition. From the inside there came a succession of
thumps and blood-curdling groans and strangles. I peered in through
the barred window, and saw the unfortunate man lying on his back in a
corner, spasmodically kicking out his legs from his chest and rolling
his dilated eyes. Suddenly he leaped to his feet and, grasping the
iron bars, shook the great door violently, chained and tied as it was.
Then he seemed to leap against the walls, and at last fell down,
groaning. He soon became rational again, and began to talk through a
crack in the door to an old man whom I took to be his father. He asked
for water, but they would not give him any, and while he was pleading
for a knife or pistol another spasm seized him.
Presently the judge came over with two policemen. They said they were
going to take the _rabioso_ out and tie him to a tree, because he was
getting the jail too dirty, and might not die for a week. As soon as
the spasm passed, and the man lay weak and moaning, the burly
policemen loosed the _riatas_, and, stepping in quickly, seized him
from behind. He protested pathetically against going into the hot
sunshine, but they pushed him out and started toward the corral to tie
him up. But when the fierce sun struck him he was racked by horrible
convulsions. He kicked and struggled, bit at his shoulders, and blew
spittle into the air when he threw his head back. The policemen
breathed hard, and the old man, his father, hugged himself in agony as
he walked behind. There was a desperate struggle, then, with a final
paroxysm, the _rabioso_ suddenly collapsed and hung limp in their
arms. At first they thought that he was dead, but when he showed signs
of life they carried him to the corral and tied him to a tree before
he became conscious. Two days later he died.