Lizzie van Rees, aged 17, Hilversum, Holland, wishes to correspond with Grete Fromberg, Berlin, and with an English girl of her own age.
Miss Edith Wogaman, Curra Creek, viâ Wellington, New South Wales (19), wishes to correspond with “Miss Inquisitive” or another “nice girl.”
Miss Kate Prout, Bolarum, Deccan, India (19) would like an English girl to write to her at once, and “hopes they will be great friends.”
Miss Beatrice Miller, 2, Talbot Villas, Prince’s Road, Buckhurst Hill, Essex, would like to correspond with a French girl. She is fond of painting, but backward in French. Letters should be corrected and returned.
Janet and Grace Couper, aged 16 and 14, would like to correspond and exchange stamps with girls in the West Indies, India, Holland, and Central America. Address, Te Waikaha, Havelock, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.
Miss Daisy Bouverie (18) would like to correspond with an American young lady. Address, 514, Commercial Road, Landport, Portsmouth.
Miss Nicholls, Laburnum Villa, Leamington, would be pleased to correspond with an Italian lady interested in art, science, or literature—both writing in Italian.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Insecto.—The beetles have been so crushed that it is not easy to say absolutely what they are. But we think there can be very little doubt that they are Anobium domesticum, a wood-boring beetle very common in old houses. The boring is, of course, the work of the larvæ, which are believed to take often three years to come to perfection and change into the pupæ—the little round holes being the open ends of their galleries. Canon Fowler says, “They may, to a great extent, be got rid of by the application of benzine, with which a small quantity of carbolic acid has been mixed;” if they have bored into furniture which is delicately polished, “the benzine had better be applied alone. Unpolished furniture would be best freed from the pest by immersion in boiling water, if the articles are not too unwieldy to admit of such treatment. Moderately strong carbolic acid will at once destroy both grubs, eggs, and perfect insects, but the furniture to which it is applied will require re-polishing.” As the query is as to the destruction of floor-boards, we should think the carbolic acid would not be difficult.
An Impoverished One.—We know of nothing to remove the black marks, unless French chalk may answer the purpose. Scrape a little on them at the back and try.