A SALT-WATER PARASITE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 12190, 11 June 1907, Page 7

A SALT-WATER PARASITE.

THE TEREDO OR SHIPWORM.

Thr tcH'd<i, oi shipuorm, is the <aii.se to (\a\ of enough expenditure to pay tor a navy. It is a picjiace to cvciy wharf from the Black Sea to Chusli.ina. Few parts oi iiu' world ate tree from its destructive pi esc nee. It lives in wood, perfectly sound wood, under water, and cats the wood in order to make a dwelling place lor itself. Hit* stcadj burrow ings of this rapaciuih pest came within an ace of causing ihr inundation of a large part of Holland. Jn tluee \rars breaks in the tuiioer dikes were being patched up; in five, the whole section fldve wa\. The tirphers were completely honejcomb< d, ,md so lotten that the wood loiilcl he crushed b\ hand. One ffood that the worm has done for this <otintiy was to sii««e.st to Sir S Biunel his plan for the Thames tunnel \ .miiouili, howe\cr, nuist build H-i pieis eveiv three \earv. Wooden ve-.se! -. h.m to be scraped and "amted evciy foui oi iive months, \orth Anieru a "-ufiei - a*much as Km ope. All down the Xcw England coast piles aie altar ked and ch-s troiecl. Two \eais tlicre forms the avi rage life of subirerued timber. Chanri-1 boj s are left in the water on!\ six months in the year; then a new .set is put in and the ok! ones dried. To these o< can terrors the hardest o.ik offers no moie resistance than the softest pine. The\ <an boie their wax through the toughest knots. Teak alone resists their attacks. What sort of animal is this that so successfulv defies the ingenuity ot m.n\ to sti,j) its ravages. In shape it resembles the common norm but its body is lon.tj, tapering to«. r> rds the end, and of a whitish colour. The worm is, however, a niollusk of the oider of bivales like the ovstev. Individuals sometimes attain lo the length of ten inches, some say three- feet, and about a <|iiarter of an inch in diameter; but such it sixe is r.ne. four inches being about the average length.