"
Oh! lucky Philadelphians! who can boast of possessing the oldest library
in the States, but must ask leave of a private collector if they wish
to see the one wormhole in the whole city!
[1] "American Encyclopaedia of Printing": by Luther Ringwalt.
8vo. Philadelphia, 1871.
CHAPTER VII.
OTHER VERMIN.
BESIDES the worm I do not think there is any insect enemy of books
worth description. The domestic black-beetle, or cockroach,
is far too modern an introduction to our country to have done
much harm, though he will sometimes nibble the binding of books,
especially if they rest upon the floor.
Not so fortunate, however, are our American cousins, for in
the "Library Journal" for September, 1879, Mr. Weston Flint
gives an account of a dreadful little pest which commits
great havoc upon the cloth bindings of the New York libraries.
It is a small black-beetle or cockroach, called by scientists
"Blatta germanica" and by others the "Croton Bug." Unlike our
household pest, whose home is the kitchen, and whose bashfulness
loves secrecy and the dark hours, this misgrown flat species,
of which it would take two to make a medium-sized English
specimen, has gained in impudence what it has lost in size,
fearing neither light nor noise, neither man nor beast.
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