T E R 



225 



T E K 



from the two apertures of the apex of the shell, that 

 resembled the small actinics adhering to the rocks about 

 Padang, and that the body of the shell was filled with a 

 soft gelatinous flesh, similar to that of the Teredo naru/ix. 

 but this they had washed out on account of its putridity. 

 They said that the shells were in considerable number, and, 

 being gently shaken, easily taken up ; but all of them 

 were mutilated more or less, the effect probably of the 

 earthquake, when many large fragments of madrepores, 

 corals, Sec. were torn from their seat by the agitation of 

 the sea. More than twenty specimens were brought to 

 Mr. Griffiths, but not one was complete : a portion of the 

 shell with the apex nearly perfect, and another with the 

 opposite closed extremity nearly so, were however pro- 

 cured. The length of the longest of Mr. Griffiths's shells 

 was 5 feet 4 inches, and the circumference of the base 

 9 inches, tapering upwards to 2J inches. There were 

 other good ones of smaller size. The large specimen was 

 nearly perfect, having a small part of the lower extremity 

 entire. Most of the shells had adhering to them, about 

 one foot or more from the top, the small cockscomb oyster, 

 small serpulae, &c. ; consequently, Mr. Griffiths observes, 

 they must have been protruded that distance from the 

 hard mud ; but the water being thick and discoloured, the 

 people of Battoo had not taken notice of them antecedent 

 to the earthquake. The specimens were milk-white on the 

 outside and within were tinged with yellow. Mr. Griffiths 

 remarks that the large end of the shell is completely 

 closed, and has a rounded appearance ; at this part it is 

 very thin. The small end, or apex, is very brittle and 

 divided by a longitudinal septum running down for eight 

 or nine inches, forming it into two distinct tubes, inclosed 

 within the outer one, from whence the animal throws out 

 tentacula. Mr. Griffiths goes on to describe the substance 

 of the shell as composed of layers having a fibrous and 

 radiated appearance, covered externally with a pure white 

 crust, and internally as having a yellow tinge ; and the 

 external surface as frequently interrupted in a transverse 

 direction by a sudden increase of thickness, which, he 

 observes, probably indicates different stages in the growth 



Teredo gigantea. 



1, tli* small OT upper extremity of the shell, the external covering broken 

 iy aad showing the termination of the tube*, one of which ia broken. L'. a 



of the shell, although they are at unequal distances, some- 

 times at six inches, sometimes at four, in the same shell. 

 Many of the shells, he adds, are nearly straight, others 

 crooked and contorted. 



1. 



2. 



the 



upper extreumy (Phil. Tr 



1*. C., No. 1010. 



thai part of the shell where thedouhle tubes nn- tonm-il. ! T , r ,,. i ..: f . rl i4 ln f fl ll thn vprepa nf 

 or newly so, the exception being the imperfect stale of P r .^ Mon at . a " tne Verses Ot 



<PM. Traiu.) critics to the single metre, called 



i 1". l<: ' 



Teredo gigantei. 



. transverse section of shell, giving a front view into the orifices of the 

 double tulie. and showing the thickness of the shell at that part, i, trans- 

 verse section of shell at the thickest part after it had been polished, showing 

 the structure, and giving a front view of the orifices into the double tube. (Phil. 

 Traru) 



FOSSIL TEREDINES. 



M. Deshayes in his Tables notes five species of fossil 

 Teredines in the tertiary formation, Eocene period of 

 Lyell : one from the English crag, one from Paris, and four 

 from Belgium. Mr. Lea.(Contributions to Geology) records 

 a species, Teredo simplex, from the Claiborne Beds, Alabama 

 (tertiary). Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison notice 

 the genus in their Table of Fossils found in the Gosau 

 Deposit and its Equivalents in the Alps ; and also ' Teredo 

 or Pttolae,' in their Table of Fossils of Lower Styria, as 

 belonging to the ' middle system.' Dr. Fitton, in his Syste- 

 matic and Strati graphical List of Fossils in the Strata 

 below the Chalk, notes the genus, with a query, from the 

 gault of Kent and Cambridge. 



TERE'NTIA. [CICERO.] 



TERENTIAN METRES. Few subjects connected with 

 Latin literature have been treated with less success than 

 the principles and laws which govern the metres of Latin 

 comedy. The majority of readers seem to look upon the 

 writings of Plautus and Terence as so much humble prose 

 arbitrarily distributed so as to present to the eye the 

 appearance of verse without its realities. For them it 

 would be better if the whole were printed consecutively, 

 and such an arrangement would in fact be supported by 

 not a few of the existing manuscripts. On the other hand, 

 there have been writers who have laboured to remove the 

 difficulties that obscure the subject, among whom none 

 but Bentley and Hermann appear to have had any success ; 

 and what they have done still leaves the subject in a very 

 unsatisfactory position. Even the writer of the Life of 

 Terence, in the ' Biographic Universelle ' (published in, 

 1826), has the following extraordinary criticism upon the 

 metres of Terence : 'The sole rule which he observes 

 with tolerable regularity is to end each verse with an 

 iamb ; and even this limitation he often disregards, as, for 

 instance, in the terminations hie consiste ; si vis, nunc 

 jam ; audio uiolenter ; hue adducam ; hanc venturam, &c. 

 with regard to the other feet, he freely substitutes for the 

 iamb or spondee, a trochee, anapest, dactyl, double pyrrhic, 

 or four short syllables, and a cretic or; short between two 

 longs,' &c. This writer thus starts with the false im- 



Terence are reduced by 

 trimeter iambic : where- 

 VOL. XXIV. 2 G 



