PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 239 
Chelura was recorded as occurring on the Atlantic coast of 
the United States by S. T. Smith, who adds an illustration and 
useful bibliography (/). 
We now pass on to the only genus yet found boring timber 
in Australasia, namely, the Sphaeroma. In different parts of the 
world, but only in the warmer seas, different members of this 
genus have been detected injuring submerged woodwork. One 
ae the earliest to report its action was Fritz Muller, who found 
Sphaeroma terebrans to be an active pest in Brazil. 
Spence Bates has given particulars of an Indian species, 
Sphaeroma vastator. “This is smaller than the Sydney kind, 
being but one-third of an inch long. It was, however, regarded 
by that experienced carcinologist as one of the largest and most 
powerful wood destroyers that he knew. The specimen of its 
ravages, which he described, was “a piece of wood which had 
formed part of a railway bridge over one of the backwaters on 
the west coast of the Indian Peninsula. The wood was honey- 
combed with cylindrical holes from about one-tenth to two- 
tenths of an inch in diameter, placed close together. In many 
of these holes the animal was rolled up lke a ball.” 
It has been recently found that the sphere of operations of 
this genus is not altogether restricted to salt water. Miss 
Richardson (7) has pointed out a species, Sphaeroma destructor, 
discovered attacking railway trestles mi the fresh water of St. 
John’s River, at Palatka, Florida, U.S.A., at a distance from the 
sea of 100 miles. Sections of the ar received had been re- 
duced during a period of eight years from a diameter of 16 in. 
to that of 74 in. No such case has yet been published as occur- 
ring in any Australasian lake or river, but the writer has seen a 
loo from the fresh water of the Rewa River, Fiji, pitted by the 
borings of a Sphaeroma, and he anticipates that when attention 
is directed to the subject, it will be commonly found in Queens- 
land and elsewhere. 
The species boring wood in Sydney Harbour has been kindly 
identified for the writer by Mr. T. W hitelegge, the first au thority 
on Australian Crustacea, as— 
SPHZROMA QUOYANA, Milne Edwards. 
Prof. Haswell, who states that he had never found the species, 
has published the following English rendering of the original 
diagnosis :—“ Body slightly granular, last segment of the abdo- 
men ornamented above with two longitudinal rows of four or 
five small tubercles, and with a thick, obtuse, transverse crest 
ine Smith. Proc. U.S. National Museum, ii., 1879 (1880), pp. 232-5, in the Smithsonia 
iscell. Collection, xix. 
(g) Richardson. Proc. Biol. Soc., Washington, xi., 1897, pp. 105-7, Figs. 
