288 Dr. W.C. M‘Intosh on the Boring of certain Annelids. 
Annelidan borings have been noticed by many observers. 
In 1765 Baster* describes and figures the very species 
(Leucodore ciliata), I have no doubt, which has just been 
brought forward by Mr. Lankester. He observes, ‘‘ Alteram 
Nereidis speciem, quam hic describo, voco minimam tentaculis 
longissimis;”’ and his next sentence shows that he had at 
least as extensive an acquaintance with its habitat as some 
very recent writers:—‘ Hee in lapidibus, ostreis, aliisque 
piscibus testaceis, qui e limoso maris fundo petuntur, reperitur 
quam frequentissime, habitans semper in parvo ex limo aut 
arena constructo tubulo.” This author, although he does not 
further allude to the habitations in the stones, mentions that 
he put a quantity of sand beside them in a glass vessel, and 
that they very soon bored into this, and constructed tubes at 
the entrance of their tunnels. The Abbé Dicquemaref in 1781 
also refers to the same species, and he gives figures of the 
animal which, however inaccurate, may at least bear com- 
parison with some of very modern date. He called it a sea- 
insect, and he cites it as an influential agent in destroying the 
calcareous rocks and stones in the neighbourhood of Havre. 
In a second paper by the same author {, what appears to be a 
Sabellaria is described, which, it is stated, prolongs its tail 
_within the rock or stone, as well as fashions a tube of coarse 
sand or fine gravel outside. He advanced the idea of a sol- 
vent to account for these borings, an explanation all the more 
likely, as his specimens of rocks bored by marine “ insects ”’ 
were all calcareous. Dr. P. C. Abildgaard § gives fair deserip- 
tions and figures of two species which bore into the marble 
cliffs and calcareous stones below water at Santa Cruz in the 
West Indies. He calls the one Terebella bicornis, and the 
other Terebella stellata. The first is a Cymospira (C. bicornis) 
characterized by having a hard, horny, flattish operculum, 
from which project two branched antler-shaped processes. He 
also mentions at the end of his paper that another was sent 
him with three horns on its operculum, the third being closely 
appressed to the plate; but the animal was otherwise similar 
to the first. The latter is thus closely related to the Cymo- 
sptra tricornis of Dr. Baird ||, who remarks that it had ap- 
parently burrowed in Madrepore—a habit characteristic of 
other species of the genus, whose galleries occasionally pierce 
* Basteri Opuscula Subseciva, tom. ii. lib. iii. p. 134, tab. xii. fig. 11. a, c. 
+ Observat. et Mém. Phys. tom, xviii. 1781. 
t Op. cit. tom. xx. 1782. 
§ Schrift. Gesellsch. ntrf. Freund. Berlin, i. 1789, pp. 138-144. I am 
indebted to Dr. Albert Giinther for a copy of this paper, he having sent 
a complete translation, instead of a mere abstract in the original (German). 
|| Journ. Linn, Soe. vol. viii. 1865, p, 17. 
