The times., 1898-03-04
RARE OLD BOOKWORMS.
Two of the Only Three i'm Existence
Likely to Die.


New York. March 9 - The Lenox LII
brary officials are concerned about the
health of two of their boOkworms. whose
poor appetite and sluggish demeanor have
given rise To fears that these rare and
ancient gems of the worm world may
soon give up the ghost
Lenox Library has for the last two
years had the only three live bOok~Orms
at present known to science. The two
which are now ailineS We're found i'm a
large vellum- bound book on canOnical
law. printed in Antwerp in 1891. and ii is
calculated that they must be 2o8 years
old, anyway. This calculation lends an
air to the theory that they are simply
succumbiug TO the infirmities Of old age.
The two bookworms are respectively
one-eighth and one-sixteenth OF an inch
long. They. with a third bookworm %
more recent date and much smaller have
lain on exhibition in a glass covered card
board box in LenoN Library for TWO years.
They have a showcase all 10 themselves
and the big velium covered tome in which
they were found lies open beside their
box
Its back and first twenty leaves are per-
forated with hundreds of small round
holes, each as big as the lead ia a pencil
showing how they have subsisted and
Travelled about during the last two GEN.
turies.
They are most rare. One often hears
about bookworms. but invariably asSo-
ciates the name with the spectacIed per
son who haunts old booksellers and buries
his nose in musty volumes for the lore
therein and not the leaves.
The old book on commercial law came
to the library about two years ago. and il
is supposed the bookworms came with IT,
One day Chief Librarian Eames discov-
cred that the book was riddIed with tun-
nel-iike perfOrations. and on searching
the leaves discovered the boOkwOrms
crawling about as ehipper field mice.
Mr.. Eames had never seen a book
worm, and he determined to keep the
pair and see if they would live. Accord
ingiy he placed them in n shallow card
board box covered with a square of
glass and gave them a square inch of
bread to live on. for he argued that the
worms eat the book leaves for the paste
and that -four and water makes bread as
well as paste.
A third bookworm was found soon after
IN a separate volume where II had done
very little damage. and II was put into
the box with the others. IL is by far the
liYeliest of the three.
They are pale yellow in color. shaf-
ing 10 burnt brown on the back. and
look very much like white grubwOrTns
The one piece of bread has served them
for meals for the tive years of their cap
tiyity. Every few months they east off
| she'll as a locust does its 1rmor or a
snake its skin.
When the bOokwOrHs tire of the bread
diet they attack the walls of their prison.
and they have succeeded in cleaning the
paste entirely off one corner OF the box
No other living specimens of their kind
are known, though several attempts have
been made to breed them a Cornell
Two years ago. almost the same time
that the LenOx Library bookwOrrls were
discovered. one of the professors in the
Catholic Seminary in Washington found
two bookwOrms and wrote a number of
scientific treatises on them. They soon
died, however.
In July. 1892. Mr. Built an expert in
books and OLD prints, came upon two
bOOkvorms in a bOokShOP at No. S97
Broadway. burrowing their way through
rare volume of Seneca. They had eaten
completely through the book when found
They. TOO. were lost. so that unusual in
terest has been attached 10 the queer lit
tie prisoners in LenOx Library Tie IL
brarian has about concluded that a
change of diet is the needful remedy.