Norwich bulletin., 1913-09-18
The Piddnck.

Now we come to one of the most wonderful of all the creatures which live in the sea: namely, the Piddock. You can find it's empty shells lying about in numbers on almost any part of the shore where the cliffs are made of chalk or limestone. And if you look at the rocks which are left dry when the tide goes down you will see the entrances to it's burroWs-large, oval holes, several of which you may often 1 find quite close together. For the piddock is g boring shell, which drives it's tunnels through and through the rocks until very often they are quite honeycOmbed by its tunnels. Some 1 times you may meet with a big block Of chalk which only weighs about half as much a 1t should. because all the rest has been cut away by piddoCks. And if you would split it open several of these creatures could be seen lying in their burrows.
 But how they manage to cut their way through the hard chalk or the still harder limestone, nobody quite knows. Most likely, however, they do so partly by means of the soft part of the body which we call the foot" and partly by means of the shell which they turn first q little bit to one side, and then a little bit to the other side, just like a man who is using a brad awl. Every now and then, of course, the burrow gets choked up with the material which has been scraped away. sBut the piddock knows quite well what to do in order to clear it. IL just squirts out jet of water from tho siphon tubes. by means of which it breathes, and so washes the burrow out.
 Now let me tell you why I said that the piddock is one of the most wonderful of all the creatures which live in the sea.
 First of all, then, remember that the sea, acting by itself. has very little power to wash away chalk For as soon as the waves begin 10 beat upon the face of a chalk cliff, they leave on 1t the spores. or seeds, of seaweedS. Very soon those spores begin to grow, and before long the surface of the cliff is covered with masses of weed, so that the sea hardly touches the chalk underneath them at all The waves might beat upon the cliffs for hundreds and hundreds of years with out breaking 1t down.
 But the piddock comes and burrows into the chalk just below high water mark. Backwards and forwards it dividing walls are left between it's tun nes Then the sea washes in, and breaks down the walls. so that the whole foundation of the cliff is cut away. The result is, of course, that before very long there is a Iandslip.
 
 bling down into the sea. Then the piddocks begin work again a little far ther back, and by and by there is another landslip.
 You can see the effects of the pid- docks work upon any part of the coast where there are chalk cliffs. Just look at the beach when the tide is out. You will notice long splits of weed covered rocks which sometimes run far out into the sea. Well, those rocks were not always rocks. They were once the bottom of cliffs But the pid- docks and the sea, working together, cut the cliffs down: so that the sea gained, yard by yard, upon the land.
 Indeed, I think that it may be said, quite truly. that if it had not been for the work of the piddocks, Great Britain would not be an island. At any rate we do know this. that once, a great many hundreds of thousands of. years ago, Great Britain was not an island at all, but was joined to the mainland of the continent of Flu rope And we also know that the sea, acting by itself, could not possibly have cut passage through what we now call the Straits of Dover. The piddocks helped it to do so. They kept on cutting away the foundation of the cliffs by boring backwards and forwards through the solid chalk, just below the level of the waves, and the sea finished the work which the pid- docks had begun, by breaking down the thin dividing walls between their burrows
 JESSIE L. BREHAUT.
 Fla st Norwich N Y