174 
THE TELEGRAPH. 
belongs to the genus of acephalous molluscs, of which natu¬ 
ralists have enumerated twenty-four different species. 
The limnoria lignorum , called also limnoria terebrans by Dr. 
Carpenter, is a small crustacean of only the size of an ant (fig. 
Fig. 113, 
114), and thus it can penetrate the interstices between the oiuei 
wires of the best made cables into the core, through which it 
bores without showing any distaste for the gutta-percha as the 
teredo does. In the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, the 
limnoria attains the largest size and makes the widest holes. 
