Chapter 73 Pests other than silverfish

Pests other than silverfish I don't think there are any other pests of books worth writing about except bookfish.black in the house Beetles or cockroaches are still a very modern import in my country, and they are not enough to cause serious damage. Although they can sometimes bite the covers of books if they stay on the floor. However, our American brethren were not so lucky, because in September 1879 In the Library Journal, Mr. Weston described a dreadful little vermin that for New York Books The cloth binding of the library books has done a great disservice.This is a small black beetle or oil bug, known by the family

Scientists call it "Blatta Germauica" and people call it "tea bug".not like our house pests, whose nest is in the kitchen, and whose timidity makes them love secrets and nights, But it takes two of this stunted, flat variety to be worth a common English variety, whose Bold but can offset its small shape, because it is neither afraid of light nor sound, nor people nor Afraid of beasts.In the Old English Bible of 1551 we can find in Psalm 91, verse 5 Read: "You don't have to be afraid of any vermin of the night".This stanza will make Western librarians deaf to them, for day and night they are troubled by this vermin, which crawls in broad daylight to

On top of everything, staining and destroying every nook and cranny of the bookshelves they nest in.one A powdered insecticide would work, but it's very bad for bookshelves and books.However, this drug Powder is very effective against this pest, and there is consolation that the pest is slightly diseased When it manifests, it is instantly and happily devoured by its greedy companions, as if it were made of fresh paste the average. There is also a little silver bug (Lepisma) that I often memorize on books left unattended. See, but its damage is not that important. Nor is it convenient for us to think that cod is a very dangerous thing for literature and art, unless the fish is precisely the fish of faith.

Catholic, like that Ichthiobi-bliaphage (forgive me, Professor Owen) that So, in 1626, it devoured three Puritan treatises of the Protestant martyr Johann Fritz. Of course, shortly after eating this meal, it was caught and made its name in the literary record. Here is the title of the little book published on the occasion: "The Voice of the Fish, a book fish with three religious treatises in its belly, before the summer solstice of 1626 Found in the belly of a cod in a Cambridge market at night." "Cambridge was terrified because of the publication of this book," said Lawndis.

The house mouse and the field mouse, however, are sometimes very injurious to books, as the following anecdote shows: Two centuries ago, the library of the Westminster Vicarage was attached to the vicarage. Once, The building needed repairs, so wooden shelves were erected inside the house, and the books were left on the shelves. In order to support these wooden frames, several small holes were cut in the wall, one of which was chosen for a pair of mice. their home.Here they tore the pages of several books from the shelves and built a nest.The little home was secure and comfortable, until one day, when the builders' work was done,

The wooden frame was taken down, and so--how bad it was for the mice! — those small holes were filled with bricks and cement Stuff it up.Buried alive inside, the mouse parents, together with their five or six children, Soon they were all dead.So it was not until a few years ago that the pastor's house was going to be repaired again, in order to establish The wooden frame, the mouse grave was opened again, and their remains and their homes were discovered.these bones The scraps of paper from the arms and nests can now be seen in a glass enclosure in the chaplaincy, some of which are said to have been

Biography is Caxton's remaining pages.This legend may not be reliable, but some of them are indeed very early black Fragments of the cursive edition, which are now absent from the Westminster Abbey Library, some of which are Fragment of the famous Elizabethan prayer book, with woodcuts, published in 1568. A friend sent me the following anecdote: "Several years ago, some wild mice made their nests in the trees surrounding my house; The flat part of the roof of my house, so I went down the chimney into a room where I kept my books.some of them The leather-backed books, which were completely destroyed by them, and five or six volumes all bound in parchment."

Another friend told me that there is another A small pest that eats books bound in cowhide and sheepskin.its scientific name is ip tus Hololencus. He added: "Do you know that there is another terrible thing like this called Tom cus Typographus, which ravaged Germany in the seventeenth century, and in the dictionaries there, in the Turkish It is formally described under the common name of its people" (see Kilby and Spence, eds. 7th edition, 185 Published in eight years, pages 123) It's weird, I don't know about it at all, although I know Typographus well Tomicus is the enemy of all good books.However, regarding this part of our project, I still do not

It's better to get involved. The following is sent from Dr. Westbrook, Cambridge, who speaks of damages which I have not Seen in person: "My dear Brides, I am sending you a sample of the remains of the common fly which was the enemy. This The thing hides behind the paper, spits out some corrosive fluid, and then leaves this life behind.I was Often catch them in such holes. The lesion is an oblong hole covered with a white, hairy smooth substance (fungiform thing? ) around, it is difficult to express with woodcut.The size shown here is exactly as it is. (Translator press: The original book has a woodcut illustration attached here, which shows the oblong hole in the paper, which is omitted here).

collector Also, the two-legged saboteurs, they should be a little more sensible. Positive damage, perhaps as much as any other enemy.I am not referring to thieves, who Although the owner has damage, but for the books themselves, it is just a transfer from one row of bookshelves to another row of bookshelves. That's all, it can be said that there is no harm.I'm not talking about certain readers who frequent public reading Libraries often cut entire articles from magazines or encyclopedias to save the trouble of transcription.this kind The destruction of is uncommon, and only happens to those books that are easily replenished, so it is only worth accidental

Mention; but when heaven produces such cunning old book-vandals as John Bagford, this One of the founders of the Society of Antiques, that is a serious matter, because this man in the last century In the early days, I traveled around the world, patronizing from one library to another, learning from various editions Tear off the title page from an ancient book.He breaks this down by country and city, plus many others Many leaflets, posters, manuscripts of notes, and other miscellaneous collections constitute a huge volume of more than one hundred volumes. Zhi, are now preserved in the British Museum.Taking them as one of the materials that make up a printed history, Of course its usefulness cannot be erased, but its direct damage is the destruction of many rare books, and the editions The benefits that the family gains from them are far from offsetting the losses.When you emerge from these giant volumes from time to time Find books with titles that are now all lost, or are extremely rare; when you see a The printed inscription at the end of the scroll, or the printer's logo at the front of the volume, which is cut from a rare fifteenth-century ancient book, is also Lots of other stuff of this kind stuck together, of varying value, and you can't bless this cobbler by birth Antique John? Bagford.His bust, painted by Howard, had been engraved by Fairteau, and later Come and engrave it again for "The Decameron of Versionists". Bad examples often have no shortage of imitators, so one or two of these collections appear each season in In the market, it is collected by those who love books.People like them, although they claim to be book lovers, should actually be Among the worst enemies of the book. The following is copied from the catalog of a second-hand bookstore, dated April 1880, and can be used We get an idea of ​​what these heartless saboteurs do: