16 POPULAE BRITISH CONCHOLOGY. 



Pirst, the sapling, rising from the seed, gradually attaining 

 the maturity of a full-grown tree, blossoming and flourishing 

 for years, until, uprooted by some mighty land-torrent, it has 

 been drifted down a river into the ocean. The germs of the 

 Teredince have settled on the floating mass ; they riddle its 

 substance, and line the holes with their slielly tubes. Prom 

 generation to generation they live, reproduce, and die ; then 

 some check occurs, or the bay becomes silted up with marine 

 mud, in which the wood, with its colony, is buried. By a 

 subsequent chemical action the mass is changed into stone; 

 season after season fresh marine deposits are laid upon it, 

 till at length the clay-bed is upheaved, ocean recedes, acres 

 of dry land appear ; by processes incredibly slow, this dry 

 land becomes fit for the habitation of man : London is then 

 built, and in the parks and gardens trees are planted, where 

 they flourish for ages, perhaps destined one day, by similar 

 catastrophes, to begin the same story over again. 



XYIiOPHAGA, OR "Wood-eater." 

 The younger part of my readers must make some allow- 

 ance for the scientific names they may meet with, and not, 

 for instance, run away with the notion that this "wood- 

 eater^^ actually devours the wood which he penetrates, 



