immense amount of damage. This animal measures a foot in length, 

 although it sometimes attains a length of three feet. The shells are 

 two little hemispherical valves placed at the extreme posterior end 

 of the body. The siphons are very long and worm-like, and termi- 

 nate in two shelly pallets or paddles. The foot is broad and sucker- 

 like. The vital organs of the animal are all encased in the little shell. 

 The Teredo bores into wood, such as piling, wharves, ships, and any 

 kind of timber, and no wood is hard enough to withstand its ravages. 

 It always bores in the direction of the grain unless it meets another 

 Teredo or a knot in the wood, when it will change its course a little. 

 As it bores, it lines the tube with shelly matter, always keeping the 

 tip of its siphons within easy reach of the original opening, in order 

 to obtain both a food supply and oxygen. The wood which is swallowed 

 in boring the tunnel is taken into the mouth, passes through the stomach 

 and intestine, and is expelled into the water. When the Teredo first 

 enters the wood the hole is very small, and for this reason 

 a piece of wood may be perfectly honeycombed with the 

 tubes of this animal, and the fact may not be known until 

 some shock or blow breaks the timber and reveals the dam- 

 age. Metal sheathing and broad -headed nails have been 

 found very effectual in protecting ships and piers from the 

 Teredo. The curious pallets spoken of are used by the 

 animal to effectually close its tube when danger is near, 

 or when it desires to shut off the current of water. 



"One of the most curious of bivalves is the Aspercjillum, 

 known as the watering-pot, which burrows by hundreds in 

 soft mud. The original shell is about a quarter of an inch 

 in length ; but the adult animal is encased in a large, shelly Watering- 

 tube fully seven inches long, in the lower end of which the Aspergnium 

 scarcely distinguishable valves are cemented. The lower vaginiferuin. 



^ ' . a, original 



end is perforated by many small, tube-like holes, and the valves of 



a Vi a 1 1 * \~\ 



upper, or siphonal, end is encircled by four or five frills, sieve -like 

 or ruffles. There are about twenty species in this peculiar 

 genus, living in the Red Sea, at Java, Australia, and New 

 Zealand, and the mollusk is certainly very strange and 

 shows to what extremes Nature goes in fashioning her 

 creatures." 



As it was now closing time, we left the building, and in about an 

 hour took the train for Providence. 



I 



C 



tubes; c, 

 frilled upper 

 end. One 

 half natural 

 size. (Wood- 

 ward.) 



81 



