Linnæus long ago designated the ship-worm as the _calamitas navium_, and although perhaps the expression as applied to ships is somewhat far-fetched—save in the case of broken-down hulks—and utterly inapplicable in this age of iron, there can be little doubt that regarded relatively to wooden piles, piers, and like erections, the ship-worm is unquestionably a calamity personified. So, at anyrate, thought the Dutch in the years 1731-32, when the teredo began to pay attentions of too exclusive a nature to the wooden piles which supported the great earth-works or ‘dikes’ that keep the sea from claiming the United Provinces as its own. A Dutchman has been well said to pay great attention to two things which are euphoniously and shortly expressed by the words ‘dams’ and ‘drams.’ The former keep the sea from invading his territory, and the latter aid in protecting him personally from the effects of the perennial damp amidst which he exists. The ship-worm in the years just mentioned caused terror to prevail through the length and breadth of the Netherlands, through its appearance in large numbers in the wooden piles of the dams or dikes. On these piles the fortunes of Holland may be said to depend; and the foundations of the Dutch empire might therefore be regarded, correctly enough, as having been sapped and threatened by an envious enemy in the shape of a mollusc, and one belonging to by no means the highest group of that division of animals. The alarm spread fast through the Netherlands, and the government was not slow to appreciate the danger, or to offer a reward of large amount for the discovery of any plan which would successfully stay the progress of such dreaded invaders. Inventors, it might be remarked, are not slow, as a rule, to accept invitations of such generous nature; and if report speaks truly, the office of discriminating between the worthless and feasible projects which were submitted to the Dutch nation on the occasion referred to, could not have proved either an easy or enviable one. Then came the chemists with lotions innumerable, and the inventors of varnishes, paints, and poisons were in a state of hopeful anxiety. But none of these preparations was found to fulfil the required conditions, and the only project which appeared to savour of feasibility was one which was rejected on account of its impracticable nature—namely that of picking the teredos from their burrows like whelks from their shells. The kingdom of Holland thus appeared in a fair way of being undermined by an enemy of infinitely greater power and one less capable of being successfully resisted than the Grand Turk, who once upon a time declared his intention of exterminating the nation with an army whose only weapons were spades and shovels. But after a period of unrestricted labour, the ship-worm ‘turned tail’ on the Netherlands, and disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving only a few stragglers to mark the vantage-ground.