Entomologists even do not appear to have paid much attention
to the natural history of the "Worm." Kirby, speaking of it,
says, "the larvae of Crambus pinguinalis spins a robe which it
covers with its own excrement, and does no little injury."
Again, "I have often observed the caterpillar of a little moth
that takes its station in damp old books, and there commits
great ravages, and many a black-letter rarity, which in these days
of bibliomania would have been valued at its weight in gold,
has been snatched by these devastators," etc., etc.

As already quoted, Doraston's description is very vague.
To him he is in one verse "a sort of busy worm," and in another "a
puny rankling reptile." Hannett, in his work on book-binding,
gives "Aglossa pinguinalis" as the real name, and Mrs. Gatty,
in her Parables, christens it "Hypothenemus cruditus."

The, Rev. F. T. Havergal, who many years ago had much trouble with
bookworms in the Cathedral Library of Hereford, says they are a kind of
death-watch, with a "hard outer skin, and are dark brown," another sort
"having white bodies with brown spots on their heads." Mr. Holme, in
"Notes and Queries" for 1870, states that the "Anobium paniceum" has done
considerable injury to the Arabic manuscripts brought from Cairo, by
Burckhardt, and now in the University Library, Cambridge. 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