Other writers
say "Acarus eruditus" or "Anobium pertinax" are the correct scientific
names.
Personally, I have come across but few specimens; nevertheless, from what
I have been told by librarians, and judging from analogy, I imagine
the following to be about the truth:--
There are several kinds of caterpillar and grub, which eat into books,
those with legs are the larvae of moths; those without legs, or rather
with rudimentary legs, are grubs and turn to beetles.
It is not known whether any species of caterpillar or grub can live
generation after generation upon books alone, but several sorts of
wood-borers, and others which live upon vegetable refuse, will attack
paper, especially if attracted in the first place by the real wooden
boards in which it was the custom of the old book-binders to clothe
their volumes. In this belief, some country librarians object to opening
the library windows lest the enemy should fly in from the neighbouring
woods, and rear a brood of worms. Anyone, indeed, who has seen a hole
in a filbert, or a piece of wood riddled by dry rot, will recognize a
similarity of appearance in the channels made by these insect enemies.
Among the paper-eating species are:--
1. The "Anobium." Of this beetle there are varieties, viz.
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