[silk] Pecular Behaviour of White Ants

[Ramu Narayan <ramunar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just discovered that one of my bookshelves has been invaded by white ants,
or termites, or woodworms, or whatever they're called, and they've been in
residence for a while now. The little buggers who chew up books, walls and
furniture. They seemed to have climbed up the wall angle, reached a
bookshelf mounted at ceiling level, and proceeded to work their way left to
right. Far from gorging indiscriminately, they've been very selective. They
destroyed all my Jack Vances (including complete Demon Princes), skipped a
Mickey Spillane which had no business being there, ate several Simenon
anthologies but ignored single novels, started on a Cordwainer Smith and
abandoned it, made a thorough meal of all my Brian Stablefords, ate one
Updike (Bech: A Book) but skipped the four or five that followed, and
played merry hell with John Sladek and Norman Spinrad, but only the SF
titles.

 The only explanation I can find for this erratic behaviour is that most of
the titles on their menu were DAW. Something in the ink or paper? Does
their eating a particular book represent appreciation or criticism? Not
that I care. I've had to junk about 40 books with much mourning and
gnashing of teeth. Now will someone tell me, do they eat computers?

Ramu