THE PIDDOCK 49 



Now let me tell you why I said that the piddock 

 is one of the most wonderful of all the creatures 

 which live in the sea. 



First of all, then, remember that the sea, act- 

 ing by itself, has very little power to wash away 

 chalk. For as soon as the waves begin to beat 

 upon the face of a chalk cliff, they leave on it 

 the spores, or seeds, of sea-weeds. Very soon 

 those spores begin to grow, and before long the 

 surface of the cliff is covered with masses of 

 weed, so that the sea hardly touches the chalk 

 underneath them at all. The waves might beat 

 upon the cliffs for hundreds and hundreds of 

 years without breaking it down. 



But the piddock comes and burrows into the 

 chalk just below high-water mark. Backwards 

 and forwards it goes boring on, till at last only 

 thin dividing walls are left between its tunnels. 

 Then the sea washes in, and breaks down these 

 walls, so that the whole foundation of the cliff 

 is cut away. The result is, of course, that be- 

 fore very long there is a landslip. Hundreds 

 of tons of chalk come tumbling down into the 

 sea. Then the piddocks begin work again a 

 little farther back, and by and by there is another 

 landslip. 



You can see the effects of the piddock's work 

 upon any part of the coast where there are 

 chalk cliffs. Just look at the beach when the 

 tide is out. You will notice long spits of weed- 



