378 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Unw 



of every description is devoured by it. "When the teredos have 

 taken entire possession of a piece of timber, they destroy it so 

 completely that if the shelly lining were removed from the 

 wood, and each weighed separately, the mineral substance 

 would equal the vegetable in weight. The shipworm has been 

 the cause of numerous wrecks, for it silently and unsuspectedly 

 reduces the plankings and timbers to such a state of fragility 

 that when struck by the side of a vessel, or even by an ordinary 

 boat, large fragments will be broken off. A pier has been known 

 to be so stealthily sapped by these submarine miners that its 

 unsound state, which might have endangered a hundred lives, 

 was only discovered by an accident. The insidious, effective, 

 and dangerous way in which this teredo navalis performs its 

 work, reminds us of the proceedings of such persons, in congre- 

 gational and other churches, as are very much addicted to the 

 habit of calling themselves " poor worms." These " poor 

 worms " are always the beings who destroy the structures which 

 good and noble men have made. They fasten themselves upon 

 a gospel ship and burrow about it for their own benefit in all 

 directions. Very often their presence is not even suspected, for 

 they do not alter the external appearance of things. But as 

 soon as any ecclesiastical tempest blows, or the ship touches any 

 sunken local rocks, the extent of the operations of the " poor 

 worms" is awfully apparent, for there is a shipwreck as the 

 result of them. Many a Christian minister has been horrified 

 by the discovery, just before a storm, that even his vestry con- 

 tains " poor worms," who weigh at a church meeting as much 

 as all the wise men a fact which he had never for a moment 

 been led to suspect. H. 



The Penalty of Unwariness. 



Flamingoes are very shy and timid birds, and shun all 

 attempts of man to approach them ; the vicinity of animals, 

 however, they disregard. Any one who is acquainted with this 

 fact can take advantage of it so as to effect the slaughter of these 

 beautiful animals by dressing himself up in the skin of a horse 

 or an ox. Thus disguised, the sportsman may get close to them 

 and shoot them down at his ease. So long as their enemy is 



