168 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



not improbable that it may have been an insect (Lim- 

 noriay Leach) of another family, one species of 

 which, according to the same authors, " in point of 

 rapidity of execution seems to surpass all its Euro- 

 pean brethren, and in many cases may be productive 

 of more serious injury than any of them, since it 

 attacks the wood-work of piers and jetties constructed 

 in salt water, and so effectually, as to threaten the 

 rapid destruction of those in which it has established 

 itself. In December, 1815, I was favoured by 

 Charles Lutwidge, Esq. of Hull, with specimens of 

 wood from the piers at Bridlington Quay, which 

 wofully confirm the fears entertained of their total 

 ruin by the hosts of these pigmy assailants, that have 

 within a few years made good a lodgment in them, 

 and which, though not so big as a grain of rice, ply 

 their masticating organs with such assiduity, as to 

 have already reduced great part of the wood-work 

 into a state resembling honey-comb. One specimen 

 was a portion of a three-inch fir plank nailed to the 

 North Pier about three years since, which is now 

 crumbled away to less than an inch in thickness : in 

 fact deducting the space occupied by the cells, which 

 cover both surfaces as closely as possible, barely half 

 an inch of solid wood is left ; and though its pro- 

 gress is slower in oak, that wood is equally liable to 

 be attacked by it. If this insect were easily intro- 

 duced to new stations, it might soon prove as de- 

 structive to our jetties as the Teredo navalis to those 

 of Holland, and induce the necessity of substituting 

 stone for wood universally^ whatever the expense ; 

 but happily it seems endowed with very limited 

 powers of migration ; for though it has spread along 

 both the North and South Piers of Bridlington har- 

 bour, it has not yet, as Mr. Lutwidge informs me, 

 reached the Dolphin, nor an insulated jetty within 

 the harbour. 



