INDIRECT IXJURIE3 CAUSED BY INSECTS. 23/ 



cution seems to surpass all its European brethren, and 

 in many cases maybe 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 effec- 

 tually, 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, witli 

 specimens of wood from the piers at Bridlington Quay 

 wp.icli v»ofully confirm the fears entertained of thvir 

 total ruin by the hosts of these pygmy assailants that 

 have, within a few years, made good a lodgement in 

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

 ply their masticatory 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, wliich is now crumbled 

 away to less than an inch in thickness — in fact, deduct- 

 ing tlie space occupied by the cells which cover botli 

 surfaces as closely as possible, barely half an inch of solid 

 wood is left ; and though its progress is slower in oak, 

 that wood is equally liable to be attacked by it. — If this 

 insect were easily introduced to new stations, it might 

 soon prove as destructive to our jetties as the Teredo 

 tiavalis to those of Holland, and induce the necessity 

 of substituting stone for wood universally, Avhatever 

 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 

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

 reached the Dolphin nor an insulated jetty within the 

 harbour. — The inhabitants of Bridlington Quay believe 



