TEREDO. 129 



adopted by the Portuguese to get rid of it. This was 

 to scorch their vessels, so as to form a crust of charcoal 

 an inch thick ; but he observes that the process was not 

 "■ sine periculo/^ for it not unfrequently happened that 

 the fire would spread and the whole of the vessel be 

 burnt down. In the same century Bonanni and Dampier 

 briefly alluded to it ; but it seems to have escaped the at- 

 tention of Aldrovandus and Lister. In 1 715 Vallisnieri, 

 and in 1720 Deslandes published some observations on 

 the subject ; those of the first-named writer were made at 

 Venice, of the other at Brest. In each case more fancy 

 than philosophy is exhibited. The " ver de mer '' of 

 Deslandes was a fabulous production, compounded of the 

 Teredo and a well-known annelid which accompanies and 

 preys on it. He believed that some of these " vers de 

 mer '' lived in wood, and others in the sea, and that the 

 latter copulated in the water and afterwards entered into 

 the wood, where the reproductive power ceased. One 

 remark of Deslandes is more correct, and at all events 

 is quaint. He says that it is difficult to imagine how 

 an insect, which has such a phlegmatic air, can be so 

 wonderfully active in its malice. In consequence of the 

 excessive devastations which Holland suifered from this 

 cause in the last century, and especially in 1730, 1731, 

 and 1732, the history of the '' Zee-w^orm ^' was then assi- 

 duously investigated by a crowd of native writers, who 

 would seem to have been actuated by their patriotic 

 feelings ; and innumerable remedies were invented to 

 stop the plague. In 1733 eight different treatises, of 

 more or less merit, appeared. Preeminent among these 

 was a monograph by Godfrey Sellius, a celebrated 

 lawyer of Utrecht, and a fellow of our Royal Society. 

 His *^Historia Naturalis Teredinis sen Xylophagi marini,' 

 in quarto, contains 366 pages, besides two w^ell executed 



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