In the family Scolytidæ only one species belongs to the book ravagers. It is known as Hypothemus eruditus, and was described by Westwood in 1836 as "pitchy black, the head of the same color, entirely concealed from above by the front thorax." It is very minute in size, being about one twentieth of an inch in length. So far as its depredations have been observed it confines its work to the bindings of books, making furrows in all directions much as it does in the sap wood of dead trees. The strong resemblance of its burrowing to the gouging done by an engraver's chisel has given to this family the name of "engraver beetles."
A review of the different families of insects whose habits under favorable conditions lead them to infest books and bindings will show them to be more or less well defined according to their feeding habits. The book scorpions and mite, Cheyletus eruditus, which, as we have seen, do not come under the head of insects, are primarily carnivorous, and their presence in books may be due to the fact that they find there animal as well as vegetable food. This is certainly true of the book scorpion, which feeds on mites, book lice, and other small insects. The "fish moths" or "silver fish," the "book lice," and the "cockroaches" can have no other reason for infesting books than their liking for farinaceous substances such as are used in and about the bindings and labels of books. For this reason the damage done by them is largely confined to the exterior or interior of the bindings, and only so much of the book itself is injured as comes in their way in their search for food. The "white ants" feed principally on wood, and in and about books there is more or less wood fiber which would be to the liking of these voracious feeders. The moths and beetles are the burrowers and borers. They seek retired places in which to lay their eggs where the larvæ will be surrounded with food for their growth. The moths and some of the beetles are more given to burrowing in the bindings, keeping close to the outer surface for the purpose, it is thought, of making it easy for the imago to emerge after the change is completed; while others bore straight tunnels often from cover to cover.
A natural conclusion for one who has gone over the literature of book-injuring pests to reach is that the many persons that have been industriously looking for the bookworm, as well as those that have reported the finding of isolated specimens, some dead, some alive, have had in mind the one creature which bored holes in books. The frequent use of the terms "genuine bookworm," "the real bookworm," etc., reveals the fact that the users of these phrases approached the subject with a preconceived idea of the kind of creature they should find to account for the ravages only too apparent on scores of volumes which pass through the hands of booksellers and book keepers. To many the boring beetles are the only creatures which are rightfully called bookworms, and in their search other book pests have not been taken into account.
HYDROPHOBIA IN BAJA CALIFORNIA.
By DANE COOLIDGE.
When, in 1884, Pasteur discovered the true nature and cure of hydrophobia, he dispelled the accumulated superstition of centuries regarding this mysterious and dreaded disease. But in some countries where hydrophobia exists his cure is not yet known, and the old superstitions remain. While collecting mammals near San José del Cabo, in the cape region of Lower California, two summers ago, I found the country people very fearful of wild animals, especially of skunks and coyotes. My Mexican boy, whom I had sent on an errand, remained perched half the afternoon in a thorny mesquite tree because he had seen a coyote and was afraid it was rabioso. But they fear the skunks most of all because of their habit of approaching men in the night while they sleep, and biting them on the toe or ear, or any exposed part. In defense, unusual precautions are taken to exclude them. The windows of the houses are barred with iron, and the doors are made in halves, horizontally, so that the lower part may be closed to keep out animals and snakes without interfering with free ventilation. The common people, who live in brush houses, blockade their doorways at night, and rely on their cur dogs to attack any animal which may come near.
Notwithstanding all this evidence, and innumerable ghastly stories, I remained a month in the country, at the rancho of Francis Pazik, a very intelligent and well-educated Bohemian, without seeing any rabid animals. Then, one evening just at sundown, a crowd of men came up the path, leading one of Pazik's mules and dragging the carcass of a skunk. They said that it had come out into the open field where the mule was picketed and bitten it on the hind foot. All of them insisted that it was rabid, and cited its extreme emaciation as a proof. The young man who dragged it showed me his great toe, half burned off with blue vitriol, and told me that a skunk had bitten him there two months before, and the doctors had burned it. These native "doctors" are uneducated men who live on the superstition of the people. In the case of hydrophobia their methods are characteristic. There are in the cane fields little insect-eating animals called shrews which, in that country, give off a scent so like that of a skunk that Pazik has hunted them out with his dogs in the night by mistake. The "doctors" pay as much as two dollars apiece for shrews on urgent occasions, and, mixing their bodies with herbs and roots, form a concoction which they claim will ward off hydrophobia. Besides this, they also bleed the patient and cauterize the wound.