ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, V. IV. 4–6
say that all woods are eaten by the teredon except the olive, wild or cultivated, and that these woods escape because of their bitter taste. [1]Now woods which decay in sea-water are eaten by the teredon, those which decay on land by the skolex and thrips; for the teredon does not occur except in the sea. It is a creature small in size, but has a large head and teeth; the thrips resembles the skolex, and these creatures gradually bore through[2] timber. The harm that these do is easy to remedy; for, if the wood is smeared with pitch, it does not let in water when it is dragged down into the sea; but the harm done by the teredon cannot be undone. Of the skolekes which occur in wood some come from the decay of the wood itself, some from other skolekes which engender therein. For these produce their young in timber, as the worm called the 'horned worm'[3] does in trees, having bored and scooped out a sort of mouse-hole[4] by turning round and round. But it avoids wood which has a strong smell or is bitter or hard, such as boxwood, since it is unable to bore through it. They say too that the wood of the silver-fir, if barked just before the time of budding, remains in water without decaying, and that this was clearly seen at Pheneos in Arcadia, when their plain was turned into a lake since the outlet was blocked up.[5] For at that time they made[6] their bridges of this wood, and, as the water rose, they placed more and more atop of them, and, when the water burst its way through and disappeared, all the wood was found to be undecayed. This fact then became of an accident.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 220 and 221.
- ↑ τιτραίνεται conj. Scal. from G; τιτρένεται U Vo.; πεπαίνεται MV Ald.
- ↑ cf. 4. 14. 5.
- ↑ ὡσπερεὶ μυοδόχον conj. W.; ὥσπερ οἱ μυόχοδοι MSS.; G omits. The word μυοδόχος does not occur elsewhere as a subst.
- ↑ cf.3. 1. 2. φραχθέντος conj. Sch.; βραχέτος Ald. H.
- ↑ ποιοῦντες⸒ ἐφιστάντες nom. pendens.
