Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury [Connecticut]) 1903-1917, 1903-08-19
ABOUT A BORING MoLLUsK.
SeIf-Imprisoned Sea- Creature Be-
comes Accustomed to Summons
at Feeding Time.

Down at the bottom of a balanced
aquarium tank, cylindrical glass jar
16 inches deep by foot in diameter, in
the heart of bunch of brain coral about
the shape Of and four times as big as a
doorknob, at the New York aquarium,
lives self-imprisoned creature whose
presence there was unsupported for a
year, says the Sun.
When this piece of coral, which was
brought up from Bermuda something
more than year ago, was placed on
the bottom of the tank, there was OBJ
server in it, little to one side from the
top, an oval-shaped opening about three
eighths of an inch one way by a quar-
ter of an inch the other, with a little
spear of some marine vegetation that
looked like the bleached-out tip Of a
tiny blade Of grass protecting across one
end of the opening underneath That
was all there was to it, SO far as APP
pearances went-a little hole in the top
of the coral, with little scrap OF sea
grass across the under side of it.
After the coral was placed In the tank
Ut remained without sign or life for a
year. Then one day few weeks ago, at
feeding time, when the food was carried
down through the water on the end of
slender rod, something within the open
ing brushed aside that spear of grass
from across the under side and fairly
filed up the little opening with itself,
this something being the end of bor-
ing mollusk, which had been living in
there all this time without anybody's
knowing it, and which had now for the
first time come into view
It had been getting what it could or
what CHANGED to come to it for food, but
at last, apparently, 1t had come to the
door of it's self-made cell to get for it
self some share OF the food supplied to
the tank,
And now whenever the edge of it's cell
door is tapped gently with the tip OF the
feed stick this boring mollusk comes
forward from within, and, thrusting
aside that spear of grass, which always
falls back across the opening when the
mollusk retires from 1t, fIlsup the door
way as it did ON it's first appearance. It
might now be described as a tame moi
lusk
There are many kinds Of boring mol
lusks, one example being the teredo,
commonly called the shipworm, which
bores in wood. There are many stone
borers. The soft sandstone rock that is
fished up from the ocean bottom Off the
Jersey coast is honeycombed with the
borings of such animals, which, free
swimmers in their earliest stage, when
they are very small, attach themselves
to the rock and bore into II, making a
small hole through which they get in,
and boring out bigger place after they
get inside, as they continue to grow.
Inside their stone cell they are safe from
other marine animals which would prey
upon them outside, and they get their
own food through the opening.
And there they live their appointed
lives, unless they should bore too deep
and bore through the rock, when the
tides might wash them out; or they
might so honeycomb mass of rock that
1t would fall and involve thousands in
a common destruction.
But there are boring moIlusks which
bore into substance much harder than
the soft porous sandstone rock, like this
one up from Bermuda, now perhaps an
inch in length, which has bored into,
and, as it grew, bored out home for it
self in the heart of piece of hard brain
coral, and which comes now to the door
of its cell when you tap ON the doorjamb
with stick