TEREDO. 9 



as well as the woodwork of ships, as they lay in the 

 docks or floated on the waves. At one time it threat- 

 ened destruction to the marine bulwarks which the Hol- 

 landers had erected, with much industry, to protect their 

 low-lying lands from the sea. Many have been the con- 

 trivances by which it was hoped to check the ravages of 

 the relentless animal, but hitherto in vain. In fact, a his- 

 tory of unsuccessful attempts to get rid of Teredos might 

 be written, and entitled ' A century of warfare between the 

 worm and the man, in which the man was defeated, and 

 the worm remained master / for even to this day the break- 

 waters of our coasts can only be maintained by renewing 

 the timber from time to time, again to become a prey to the 

 voracious worm. If dissecting, anatomizing, and exposing 

 in huge volumes of learned lore would have exterminated 

 the common enemy, it would have been done by Dutch- 

 men. If the citation of "respectable witnesses^^ would 

 have shamed the criminal out of the dock, he would have 

 been so served by the erudite Sellius, who cited no fewer 

 than two hundred authors to attest his misdeeds, and after- 

 wards went mad, perliaps with the excitement of the con- 

 test. But it was not to be. Man, as was observed by a 

 certain Emperor known to modern history, can conquer 



