I have sometimes been asked to give advice as to the best method of destroying the furniture worm or grub. If the piece of furniture (or its pieces) can without injury be “baked” in a hot chamber for twenty-four hours, at a temperature a little above that of boiling water, that is the easiest method of destroying the pest. Or, again, I should suggest placing the piece of furniture in a refrigerating chamber for a week or two. If neither of these methods can be used, the piece of furniture should be placed in a very hot room, and creosote or bisulphide of carbon or solution of cyanide of potassium should be injected with a very fine-nosed syringe into the little circular holes of the burrows on the surface of the wood; then the piece of furniture must be at once exposed to the cold, which will cause the air to be drawn into the burrows and diffuse the volatile poison within. The “worm holes” on the surface should, as soon as the piece of furniture is quite cold, be closed by melted paraffin. If the piece of wood which it is desired to “cure” will stand submersion in water for a few minutes, and is not larger than a cricket bat, it is, of course, easy, by first warming it through and then plunging it into water containing corrosive sublimate or other poison, fairly to impregnate the burrows, and make an end of the beetles and their grubs. Painting is the common and approved means of protecting wood against these attacks, and in some positions metal sheathing is used. The method most largely used for protecting wood in the open air against “worm” and “mould” is that of forcing creosote into its pores—an improvement on the old system of painting with coal tar. A more expensive but beautiful method of protecting wood is to force hard paraffin in a melted condition by pressure into the pores. The wood becomes wonderfully firm and waterproof. Neither damp and mould, nor boring insect, nor shrimp can then penetrate it. This method was introduced some years ago, but I do not know whether it has been largely used. XXXIX CHRISTMAS FARE