ook-plates_,
1574-1800 (private, 1887); Friedrich Warnecke, _Die deutschen
Bucherzeichen_ (1890); Henri Bouchot, _Les Ex-libris et les marques de
possession du livre_ (1891); Egerton Castle, _English Book-plates_
(1892); Walter Hamilton, _French Book-plates_ (1892), _Dated
Book-plates_ (1895); H.W. Fincham, _Artists and Engravers of British
and American Book-plates_ (1897); _German Book-plates_, by Count K.E.
zu Leiningen-Westerburg, translated by G.R. Denis (1901). (E. Ca.)

BOOK-SCORPION, or FALSE SCORPION, minute arachnids superficially
resembling tailless scorpions and belonging to the order
Pseudoscorpiones of the class Arachnida. Occurring in all temperate and
tropical countries, book-scorpions live for the most part under stones,
beneath the bark of trees or in vegetable detritus. A few species,
however, like the common British forms _Chelifer cancroides_ and
_Chiridium museorum_, frequent human dwellings and are found in books,
old chests, furniture, &c; others like _Ganypus littoralis_ and allied
species may be found under stones or pieces of coral between tide-marks;
while others, which are for the most part blind, live permanently in
dark caves. Their food consists of minute insects or mites. It is
possibly for the purpose of feeding on parasitic mites that
book-scorpions lodge themselves beneath the wing-cases of large tropical
beetles; and the same explanation, in default of a better, may be
extended to their well-known and oft-recorded habit of seizing hold of
the legs of horse-flies or other two-winged insects. For safety during
hibernation and moulting, book-scorpions spin a small spherical cocoon.
They are oviparous; and the eggs after being laid are carried about by
the mother, attached to the lower surface of her body, the young
remaining with their parent until they have acquired their definite
form and are able to shift for themselves. (R. I. P.)

BOOKSELLING. The trade in books is of a very ancient date. The early
poets and orators recited their effusions in public to induce their
hearers to possess written copies of their poems or orations. Frequently
they were taken down _viva voce_, and transcripts sold to such as were
wealthy enough to purchase. In the book of Jeremiah the prophet is
represented as dictating to Baruch the scribe, who, when questioned,
described the mode in which his book was written. These scribes were, in
fact, the earliest booksellers, and s