600 Asiatic Society. [No. 126. 



pore. This creature perforates the wood, leaving a mucilaginous deposit which hardens 

 into a shelly substance. It is only found during the hot months, and is termed by the 

 natives Noona Kheen («« Salt Worm"), as it is believed to be never met with out of 

 brackish water, i. e. beyond the influence of the tides during the S. W. monsoon. 

 Soondree wood is particularly liable to its attacks. The natives destroy the creature 

 by hauling their boats ashore, and burning stubble beneath them." 



This Worm combines the general form of Nereis with distinct eyes as in Phyllodyce, 

 and is therefore inadmissable into any of the described genera with which I am 

 acquainted. As in the former, its proboscis is furnished with a single pair of strong 

 serrated mandibles or nippers, and there are three minute tentacles on each side 

 posterior to its base ; beside which, over the inner margin of each eye, is a rudimental 

 antenna existing as a small tubercle. The rings of the body are very numerous, and 

 are each furnished (as in Nereis,) with a branchial lamina, but having only one mi- 

 nute tubercle and small packet of bristles beneath. Length eight inches and a half, and 

 present colour of specimen livid-white, becoming dark purplish towards the head; the 

 proboscis white, and jaws horny-black. The natural colour is mentioned by Mr. Ince 

 to be flesh-red. I shall designate it Lignicola destructor. Mr. Ince has promised a 

 specimen of the timber perforated by it, and the Worm now presented to the Society 

 was taken out of the bottom of the Chokee boat attached to the Superintendent's office 

 of Backergunge.* 



To the zoologist it will convey no information to be told that this and analogous 

 species merely bore for a habitation, a fact sufficiently implied by the existence 

 of visual organs in the specimen now exhibited, which would intimate that it watched 

 for its prey at the entrance of its hole, as various allied genera are known to feel for it 

 with their tentacles, these being, in the Lignicola, too minute to be of much efficacy for 

 the purpose. 



The specimens of Vertebrata procured in the neighbourhood during the past month 

 have not been generally of much interest, owing to the impossibility of myself devot- 

 ing any time to collecting, and the incorrigible worthlessness of the native Shikarees, 

 by whose agency 1 have hitherto endeavoured to procure specimens. The most wor- 

 thy of notice is an example of Megaderma lyra, which I myself took in the act 

 of preying upon another Bat, the interesting circumstances connected therewith have 

 been described in an article now printing for the Society's Journal.f Another speci- 



* The specimen of perforated wood here adverted to has since been received, being completely 

 honey-combed all over, the ravages of the Worm producing much the same appearance as those of 

 the Teredo navalis. 



t Vide page 255 ante. I have since made a capture of eight specimens of this Bat, from an 

 assemblage of thirty or forty, (and I can procure others of these when I please), that pass the day 

 hanging to the roof of a long roomy out-house, selecting a not very dark situation (as the Rhinolophi 

 axe said to do), though when disturbed they rarely attempt to escape by the open windows, being 

 evidently much more incommoded by bright day- light than the restricted Vespertiliones, and when 

 they do so pass out very soon settling upon any tree near at hand, and suffering themselves 

 to be taken by an insect-net. Of these eight adult specimens, only two were males, intimating, 

 however, that the sexes do not assemble separately, as is the case with various other Bats, while it 

 is pretty clear that the females much exceed the males in number. The Pteropodes are also stated 

 to herd in separate flocks, the males apart from the females, which I doubt; but here, again, 

 Jt would seem that the females are much more numerous than the males, for of twelve specimens 



