On folio 1 are 212 holes.   On folio 61 are 4 holes.
"   11  "   57   "         "    71  "  2   "
"   21  "   48   "         "    81  "  2   "
"   31  "   31   "         "    87  "  1   "
"   41  "   18   "         "    90  "  0   "
"   51  "    6   "

These 90 leaves being stout, are about the thickness of 1 inch.  The volume has 250 leaves, and turning to the end, we find on the last leaf 81 holes, made by a breed of worms not so ravenous.  Thus,

From end                |         From end. 
On folio 1 are 81 holes.     |    On folio 66 is 1 hole.
"   11 "   40   "        |         "   69   "   0   "

It is curious to notice how the holes, rapidly at first, and then slowly and more slowly, disappear.  You trace the same hole leaf after leaf, until suddenly the size becomes in one leaf reduced to half its normal diameter, and a close examination will show a small abrasion of the paper in the next leaf exactly where the hole would have come if continued.  In the book quoted it is just as if there had been a race.  In the first ten leaves the weak worms are left behind; in the second ten there are still forty-eight eaters; these are reduced to thirty-one in the third ten, and to only eighteen in the fourth ten.  On folio 51 only six worms hold on, and before folio 61 two of them have given in.  Before reaching folio 7, it is a neck and neck race between two sturdy gourmands, each making a fine large hole, one of them being oval in shape.  At folio 71 they are still neck and neck, and at folio 81 the same.  At folio 87 the oval worm gives in, the round one eating three more leaves and part way through the fourth.  The leaves of the book are then untouched until we reach the sixty-ninth from the end, upon which is one worm hole.  After this they go on multiplying to the end of the book.

I have quoted this instance because I have it handy, but many worms eat much longer holes than any in this volume; some I have seen running quite through a couple of thick volumes, covers and all.  In the “Schoeffer” book the holes are probably the work of Anobium pertinax, because the centre is spared and both ends attacked.  Originally, real wooden boards were the covers of the volume, and here, doubtless, the attack was commenced, which was carried through each board into the paper of the book.

I remember well my first visit to the Bodleian Library, in the year 1858, Dr. Bandinel being then the librarian.  He was very kind, and afforded me every facility for examining the fine collection of “Caxtons,” which was the object of my journey.  In looking over a parcel of black-letter fragments, which had been in a drawer for a long time, I came across a small grub, which, without a thought, I threw on the floor and trod under foot.  Soon after I found another, a fat, glossy fellow, so long —–­, which I carefully preserved in a little paper box, intending to observe his habits and development.  Seeing Dr. Bandinel near, I asked him to look at