Considering the numerous old books contained in the British Museum,
the Library there is wonderfully free from the worm.
Mr. Rye, lately the Keeper of the Printed Books there,
writes me "Two or three were discovered in my time, but they
were weakly creatures. One, I remember, was conveyed into
the Natural History Department, and was taken into custody
by Mr. Adam White who pronounced it to be Anobium pertinax.
I never heard of it after."

The reader, who has not had an opportunity of examining old libraries,
can have no idea of the dreadful havoc which these pests are
capable of making.

I have now before me a fine folio volume, printed on very good
unbleached paper, as thick as stout cartridge, in the year 1477,
by Peter Schoeffer, of Mentz. Unfortunately, after a period
of neglect in which it suffered severely from the "worm," it
was about fifty years ago considered worth a new cover, and so
again suffered severely, this time at the hands of the binder.
Thus the original state of the boards is unknown, but the damage
done to the leaves can be accurately described.

The "worms" have attacked each end. On the first leaf are 212
distinct holes, varying in size from a common pin hole to that which
a stout knitting-needle would make, say, <1/16> to <1/23> inch.
These holes run mostly in lines more or less at right angles with
the covers, a very few being channels along the paper affecting
three or four sheets only. The varied energy of these little pests
is thus represented:--