14 The Irish Naturalist. January, 



tube, which occurred uearthe upper or valve end, was |-inch. 

 The chambered posterior end was 3-^ inches long, and its 

 extremity bearing the twin openings for the siphons was 

 -|-inch in diameter. The upper end of the bore containing the 

 valves w^as destitute of any calcareous tube or lining for a 

 length of 4} inches, The number of partial partitions in the 

 posterior end of the tube was from 35 to 40, most of them 

 being clearly visible through the semi-diaphanous 3'et solid 

 substance of this part of the tube. In Forbes and Hanley^ 

 the number of the partitions is given as from 10 to 12. This 

 number was no doubt taken from a specimen of average size, 

 and the number of partitions probably increases with the age 

 of the animal. In texture the pallets, the partitions, and the 

 general body of the tube w^ere laminate. This was parti- 

 cularly noticeable in the outer face of the pallets, whose flakj^ 

 texture resembled that of the cuttle-bone. The general body 

 of the calcareous tube lining the bore had a thickness of half 

 a millimetre, which increased to one millimetre at the cham- 

 bered end ; and in the thinnest portion of the tube from 2 to 

 4 laminae or distinct superpositions of calcareous matter could 

 be detected. 



Both Chelura and Limnoria were present in the wood bored 

 by this Teredo, so that w^e have in Kingstown to-daj^ as 

 Thompson found in Port Patrick in 1847, no less than three 

 marine species co-operating in the destruction of harbour 

 piles. The fourth collaborator found by Thompson in the 

 Port Patrick piles, Xylophaga dorsalis, a mollusc closely allied 

 to Teredo, has not so far been detected at Kingstow^n. It is, 

 however, by no means unlikely to turn up on further exami- 

 nation of the decayed piles. It is likely, too, that all three of 

 the wood-borers now resident in Kingstown Harbour will 

 become rare in the near future, when the older timbers of the 

 Carlisle Pier have been fully replaced by nail-studded piles. 



Sandycove, Co. Dublin. 



^ Brit MoUusca, i.. p. 70. 



