NATURAL HISTORY, ORGANIZATION, AND LATE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
TEREDINIDZ, OR SHIP-WORMS. 
By CHARLES P. SIGERFOOS,4 
Professor of Zoology, University of Minnesota. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The ship-worms were favorite objects for study during the eighteenth century on 
account of the great damage they worked to the dikes of Holland in 1733 and in 
subsequent years. The first modern observations were those of Valisnieri (1715) 
and Deslandes (1720). After 1733 came Mossuet, J. %ousset, and especially God- 
frey Sellius. These observers seem to have been uns ware of the ancient observa- 
tions mentioned by Theophrastus, Pliny, and Ovid, and it was supposed that the 
ship-worms were natives of India, whence they had been brought by shipping in 
modern times. It was Godfrey Sellius who first recognized their molluscan charac- 
ters, but these were not recognized by Linnus, who grouped the ship-worms, and 
Dentalium, along with Serpula. Cuvier and Lamarck adopted the view of Sellius, 
and since their time these animals have been put in their proper place. 
The first reliable observations on the anatomy of the ship-worms were made 
by Deshayes, who gave a number of beautifully executed plates to Teredo in his 
“Mollusques d’Algerie”, 1848. Like most of the plates of this great work, how- 
ever, these are difficult to study and interpret. Supplementing the work of 
Deshayes is that of Quatrefages (1849), who began and completed his observations 
before he had access to the published results of Deshayes. This ‘‘Memoire sur le 
Genre Taret (7’eredo Linn.)” is the one usually cited at the present time, although 
the paragraph with which Quatrefages prefaces his paper is almost as applicable 
now (with slight changes in the wording) as when it was written. ‘ Naturalists 
up to the present time,’ he says, ‘“‘have strangely neglected Teredo. This is 
not the place to review the anatomical researches of the last century, which are 
filled with errors excusable by the state of science of that period. But it is sur- 
prising that a mollusk with such remarkable external characters has not been the 
object of any special research from the foundation of comparative anatomy up to 
aMy work on the ship-worms was first suggested by Prof. W. K. Brooks. His constant interest throughout my stay 
at Johns Hopkins University was of great help to me and it gives me great pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to 
him. My material was collected at Beaufort, N. C., during the summers of 1895 and 1896, and my study was continued 
in the laboratory in Baltimore. To the authorities of Johns Hopkins University I am under deep obligations, both for 
the privileges of the marine laboratories at the seaside and for the facilities for work in the laboratory in Baltimore. 
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