TEREDO. 141 



rent from those which inhabit tropical seas. Although 

 the Dutch shipworm also infests the coasts of the Crimea, 

 there is just as much reason for believing that it had been 

 imported from the German Ocean into the Black Sea, 

 as that it had been exported in the opposite direction. 

 Linnets assertion, made seventeen years after the publi- 

 cation of the work now under consideration, that the Te- 

 redo was " ex Indiis propagata,^^ had no other foundation 

 than common rumour. He ought to have known bet- 

 ter. Sellius, however, was inclined to suspect the recent 

 origin of Teredo, as a native of the German Ocean, and 

 to agree with his pious countrymen that it was a scourge 

 in the hand of an offended Deity, and inflicted on them 

 for their sins. It is mentioned by Smollett, in his 

 chronological medley of home and foreign news, called 

 a ' History of England,' that in 1732 " the Dutch 

 were greatly alarmed by an apprehension of being over- 

 whelmed by an inundation occasioned by worms, which 

 were said to have consumed the piles of timber work 

 that supported their dykes. They prayed and fasted 

 with uncommon zeal in terror of this calamity, which 

 they did not know how to avert in any other manner. 

 At length they were delivered from their fears by a 

 hard frost, which effectually destroyed these dangerous 

 animals." Among the enemies of the Teredo, which 

 serve to check its increase, Sellius enumerates the 

 smaller fishes, which prey upon the fry in their free 

 state, and many insects (annelids and Crustacea) which 

 attack and devour the adult. Foremost among the 

 latter class of natural foes he ranks the Nereilepas (or 

 Lycoris) fucata, which he calls a marine Scolopendra. 

 This is frequently found in the empty canal of the 

 Teredo, of which it has taken possession, after insinua- 

 ting itself and clearing out the original occupant. His 



