PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 249 
other cases are on record where the shipworm has extended its 
depredations into fresh water, the one from the Ganges River, 
in India, the other from the Zambesi River, in South Africa. 
NAUSITORIA AURITA, Hedley, 1899. 
Reference.—Memoir Austr. Museum, III., p. 507, Fig. 56. Dis- 
tinguished by an expanded and recurved auricle. 
Inhabits New Caledonia and the Ellice Group. 
Besides the shipworms proper there is but one other mollusc 
known to systematically riddle timber in Australasian seas, 
namely :— 
MARTESIA STRIATA, Linné. 
Pl. X., Figs. 10, 11. 
This circumzequatorial species has been identified by myself 
boring timber at Cooktown, Queensland. It occurs in New 
Caledonia ; its southern range is indicated by a single dead valve 
which I picked up in Middle Harbour, near Sydney. 
A species of the same genus was found perforating logs in 
Borneo, 12 miles from the sea, where the water was perfectly 
fresh (Adams, Gen. Rec. Moll., IT., 1838, p. 331). 
A few other bivalves, as Venerwpis or Sazxicava, might occa- 
sionally occur in wood. Other genera which habitually bore in 
stone as Pholas, Lithophaga, Gastrochaeha, or Naranio do not 
here concern us. 
RAVAGES. 
Perhaps no country has suffered from the shipworm more than 
Holland, where, in 1730, the low-lying districts narrowly escaped 
destruction from the collapse of the dykes ruined by shipworms. 
In England it was once estimated that at Plymouth and Devon- 
port alone the shipworms in one year destroyed Government pro- 
perty to the value of £8000. 
In America, piles have been rendered useless by a submergence 
of 100 days in Mobile Bay. On the Louisville and Nashville rail- 
road, piles 13 in. x 15 in. frequently have to be replaced after 
six months’ service. (2). 
Probably in Australia, where the warmer climate imposes no 
check on the multiplication or activity of the animal, and where 
larger species occur, damage is wrought more rapidly than in 
Kurope or America. 
We are much in need of exact details of the work of the 
Cobra. Statements are required which should show :—(1) The 
locality ; (2) the freshness or saltness, purity or impurity, of the 
water; (3) the botanical name of the wood infested; (4) the 
time it has been subject to infection; (5) the damage done; and 
(uv) Montfort. Trans. Am. Soc. Civ. Engineers, xxxi., p. 221. 
