124 TEREDINID.E. 



sailors, " taret " of Aclanson and the French, " zee- 

 worm '■' or " paalworm " of the Dutch, " see-wurm M of 

 the Germans, " troemark " of the Norwegian fishermen, 

 and formerly the " bysa " or " brnma " of the Italians, 

 and " broma " of Peter Martyr and the Spaniards. I 

 do not know any conchological study more interesting 

 and important, and at the same time more difficult, than 

 that of the Teredo. Although I have investigated its 

 natural history for many years, have carefully examined 

 a multitude of specimens, alive and dead, in order to 

 learn something of their habits and forms, and have 

 consulted perhaps every book or treatise published on 

 the subject, I feel as if I still knew but little of this 

 wonderful creature. Its biographers have been by no 

 means wanting for the last century and a half; so, like 

 the complete traveller in one of Bacon's essays, I " shall 

 suck the experience of many." The information I have 

 thus acquired, and the result of my own investigations 

 will be embodied in the following remarks ; and I hope 

 that other observers will take up the thread of my dis- 

 course, and make it more complete. The Teredo is an 

 anomaly. It consists of a long and nearly gelatinous 

 worm-like body, without rings or segments, termi- 

 nating at one end in a pair of hemispherical valves, 

 that somewhat resemble the two halves of a split nut- 

 shell which has had a large slice cut off at each side, 

 and at the other end in a pair of symmetrical shelly 

 paddles with handles of different lengths, which close 

 this extremity at the will of the animal. The open part 

 of the bivalve shell is placed at the further end, and 

 receives a circular disk, of a fleshy or rather muscular 

 nature, which mav be termed the foot : this is the 

 broadest or widest part. Inside each valve is seen a 

 curved process, like a bill-hook, that projects from the 



