It loves damp and warmth, and eats any fibrous material.

This caterpillar is quite unlike any garden species, and, excepting the legs, is very similar in appearance and size to the Anobium.

It is about half-inch long, with a horny head and strong jaws.
To printers' ink or writing ink he appears to have no great dislike, though I imagine that the former often disagrees with his health, unless he is very robust, as in books where the print is pierced a majority of the worm-holes I have seen are too short in extent to have provided food enough for the development of the grub.

But, although the ink may be unwholesome, many grubs survive, and, eating day and night in silence and darkness, work out their destiny leaving, according to the strength of their constitutions, a longer or shorter tunnel in the volume.
In December, 1879, Mr.Birdsall, a well-known book-binder of Northampton, kindly sent me by post a fat little Worm, which had been found by one of his workmen in an old book while being bound.

He bore his journey extremely well, being very lively when turned out.