ZOOLOGY. 361 



and although so riddled, there cannot be seen a hole on the surfaces where 

 the animal enters. I underscore the word "enters," because writers say 

 that " the worm enters into the minute pores or perforations of the wood." 

 It ma}* be so these animals may enter ; but I doubt it, and I doubt that 

 any miu^ living or dead, ever saw one of these animals " excluded from the 

 egg." As soon as they are brought forth (no matter how), they commence 

 their ravages. On the surface of the wood exposed there is never a visible 

 sign of an orifice whilst the wood is wet Mark this : the sixteenth of an 

 inch from where we may say is the embryo, they have grown to a size in 

 diameter equal to the distance grown ahead. These animals have a head or 

 bivalved auger, two parts working on a hinge, something like small pearl 

 cups with fine cutters (teeth), that look under the microscope well adapted to 

 the destructive purpose, were the substance a custard to pass through, 

 instead of its being, as it often is, a hard pine knot How strange it is that 

 these creatures will perforate the hardest wood ; I often believe that they 

 have a power (perhaps a peculiar acid) with which the hardest substances 

 can be softened and perforated. 



These destructive animals have posteriorly two minute tubular inlets, 

 through which the water as well as the oxygen can be drawn. When a 

 vessel's bottom is examined that has been prepared against the attack of the 

 worm, by exposing the bottom to the sun so as to dry it, hundreds of these 

 tubes can be seen thrust through the surface, that were invisible when the 

 bottom plank was first cleansed of the weed. It is to get a supply of water 

 to moisten them, that they make use of their membranous tubular appen- 

 dages. 



One authority says, they were originally brought from India. I am almost 

 certain that the aborigines of this country had to take their canoes out of the 

 water to pi'eserve them from their ravages. These animals, with all their 

 destructive powers, never bore through a ship's bottom plank never pass 

 through it to open space. The empty boxes which I have had hi the river 

 prove this beyond all doubt: more than one hundred boxes have been 

 examined, and not an orifice to be seen on the inside of the box, and no 

 place of entering on the outside surface ; all the parts that are injured by the 

 worm, are betwixt the out and inside surfaces. If two pieces of wood are 

 fitted together close, these molluscs will pass on as if it were a solid block. 

 They are the secret agents, the cause of many ships being " in the deep 

 bosom of the ocean buried." So far as I have seen, there is no wood, bitter 

 or sweet except the cabbage-tree, that the worm would not attack or enter. 



I have prepared many of the empty boxes by painting them, leaving a 

 small part, the edges, bare, purposely to invite attack ; and have never failed 

 to have the animal in abundance. I have prepared rods not more than one 

 fourth of an inch in diameter, with different kinds of paints, leaving one end 

 bare ; the worm would appear at the bare end, and bore on to the other end 

 of the rod, one foot in length. 



The boxes prepared with paint have not been damaged, except from the 

 injury commencing at the select part left bare or unprepared. The boards of 

 the boxes were generally three eighths of an inch thick ; by holding the box 



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