. Homes without hands : being a description of the habitations of animals, classed according to their principle of construction . Animals. THE SHIP-WOEM. 125 missioned to destroy. The Ship-worm (Teredo navalis), on the contrary, always burrows with the grain, and even makes a trans- verse tunnel, unless turned from its course by some obstacle, such, as a nail, or the burrow of another Teredo. At first sight, few would perceive that the Ship-worm belongs to the same class as the oyster and the snail, fpr it is long, slender, and worm-like in shape, from six to eight lines in diameter, and nearl
. Homes without hands : being a description of the habitations of animals, classed according to their principle of construction . Animals. THE SHIP-WOEM. 125 missioned to destroy. The Ship-worm (Teredo navalis), on the contrary, always burrows with the grain, and even makes a trans- verse tunnel, unless turned from its course by some obstacle, such, as a nail, or the burrow of another Teredo. At first sight, few would perceive that the Ship-worm belongs to the same class as the oyster and the snail, fpr it is long, slender, and worm-like in shape, from six to eight lines in diameter, and nearly a foot in length. One end is rather larger than the shaft, if we may use the term, and is furnished with a pair of curved and very narrow shell-valves, while the other is divided into a forked apparatus containing the siphon. The color is grayish-white. Such is the aspect o#the Ship-worm when adult, but in its early stages of existence it possesses a totally different form. When it first issues from the sheltering mantle of its parent, it is a little, round, lively object, covered with cilia, like a very minute hedge- hog, and, by the continual movement of these appendages, passing rapidly through the water. It does not, however, retain this form for more than six-and-thirty hours, but undergoes a farther pro- cess of development, and is then furnished with a distinct appara- tus for swimming and crawling. It also possesses rudimentary ejea, and in that portion of the body which may be considered the head there are organs of hearing resembling those of certain mollusks. "When it has passed its full time in this stage of devel- opment, it fixes upon some favorable locality, and then undergoes its last change, which transforms it into the worm-like moUusk with which naturalists are so Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustra
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Keywords: ., bookauthorwo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectanimals
