Jeffreys, in his British Conchology, gives the following species as British: Teredo norvegica, Spengler; T. navalis, Linn.; T. pedicellata, Quatrefages; T. megotara, Hanley. T. norvegica occurs chiefly on the west coast of Great Britain. It was taken by Thompson at Portpatrick in Wigtownshire, and occurred in Jeffreys's time in abundance at Milford Haven. This species has been described by Gmelin and a number of British authors as T. navalis, Linn. It is distinguished by having the base of the pallets simple, not forked, and the tube semi-concamerated at its narrower posterior end. The length does not usually exceed a foot. It is the T. navium of Sellius. T. navalis has been identified from the figures of Sellius, to which Linnaeus referred; Sellius called it T. marina. It occurs on all the western and southern coasts of Europe, from Christiania to the Black Sea, and is the species which causes so much damage to the Dutch embankments. The pallets of this species are small and forked, and the stalk is cylindrical. The tube is simple and not chambered at its narrow end. T. pedicellata was originally discovered by Quatrefages in the Bay of Los Pasages on the north coast of Spain; it has also been found in the Channel Islands, at Toulon, in Provence and in Algeria. In T. megotara the tube is simple and the pallets like those of T. norvegica; it occurs at Shetland and Wick, and also on the western shore of the Atlantic, where its range extends from Massachusetts to South Carolina. T. malleolus, Turton, and T. bipinnata, Turton, belong to the West Indies, but are often drifted in floating timber to the coasts of Europe. Other occasional visitants to the British shores are T. excavata, bipartita, spatha, fusticulus, cucullata, and fimbriata. These were described by Gwyn Jeffreys in Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1860. T. fimbriata is stated to be a native of Vancouver's Island. A kind of ship-worm, the Nausitora dunlopei of Perceval Wright, has been discovered in India, 70 m. from the sea, in a stream of perfectly fresh water, namely, the river Kumar, one of the branches of the Ganges. T. corniformis, Lam., is found burrowing in the husks of coco-nuts and other woody fruits floating in the tropical seas; its tubes are extremely crooked and contorted for want of space. Fossil wood and palm-fruits of Sheppey and Brabant are pierced in the same way.
Twenty-four fossil species have been recognized in the Lias and succeeding beds of Europe and the United States. The sub-genus Teredina, Lam., is a fossil of the Eocene of Great Britain and France.
Literature.—See, besides the works already mentioned, Godfrey Sellius, Historia naturalis teredinis seu xylophagi marini (1733); Adanson, Histoire naturelle du Sénégal (Paris, 1757); Quatrefages, Annales des Sci. Nat. (1848–50); Forbes and Hanley, Brit. Mollusca (1853); B. Hatschek, Entwicklung v. Teredo: Arbeiten aus dem Zool. Inst. Wien (1880); Deshayes, Mollusques d'Algérie; Sir E. Home, "Anatomy of Teredo," in Phil. Trans., vol. xcvi.; Frey and Leuckart, Beilrdge zur Kennlniss 'wirbelloser Thiere (1847); Woodward, Manual of Mollusca (London, 1851); Sigerfoos, "Note on the Organization of the Larva and the Post-larval Development of Shipworms." Johns Hopkins Univ. Circul., xv. 1896; Keer, Bijdräge tot de kennis van den Paalworm (Leiden, 1903).
(J. T. C.)
TEREK, a river of Russian Caucasia. It rises in the Caucasus, on the slopes of Mount Kasbek, in several head-streams, and flows north as far as Vladikavkaz, just above which it emerges from the mountains, Then it flows N.W. and N. as far as approximately 43° 45' N., whereupon it swings round to the E. and pursues that direction as far as 46° 30' E. Finally, after a comparatively short run towards the N.N.E., it branches out into a large delta on the west side of the Caspian Sea. This river, the ancient Alutas, is at first an impetuous mountain torrent, as are also all its chief tributaries—the Zunzha on the right, and the Ardon, Urukh, Cherek, Urvan, Chegem, Baksan and Malka on the left. All these streams, except the first-named, rise at altitudes of 8000 to 9000 ft. between Mount Kasbek and Mount Elbruz. In its lower course the Terek becomes very sinuous and sluggish, and frequently overflows its banks with disastrous results. Opposite its mouth it forms large sand-banks in the Caspian, and is nowhere navigable. Its length is 300 m., and the area of its drainage basin extends to 22,800 sq. m.
TEREK, a province of Russian Caucasia, situated N. of the Caucasus chain. It is bounded by the government of Stavropol on the N., by the Caspian Sea and Daghestan on the E., by Tiflis and Kutais on the S., and by the Black Sea district and the province of Kuban on the W., and has an area of 23,531 sq. m. From Mount Elbruz to Kasbek the southern boundary coincides with the main range of the Caucasus, and thus includes some of its highest peaks; further east it follows a sinuous line so as to enclose the secondary chains and their ramifications. Nearly one-third of the area is occupied by hilly tracts, the remainder being undulating and flat land belonging to the depression of the Terek; one-half of this last, on the left bank of the river, is occupied by sandy deserts, salt clay steppes, and arid stretches unsuited for cultivation. The Caucasus Mountains are described under that heading. Tertiary formations, overlain by Quaternary deposits, cover a wide area in the prairies and steppes. Mineral springs occur near Pyatigorsk.
The climate is continental. The mean annual temperatures are 49.6° Fahr. at Pyatigorsk (1680 ft. above the sea; January 39°, July 70°) and 47.7° at Vladikavkaz (2345 ft.; January 23°, July 69°), but frosts a few degrees below zero are not uncommon. The mountain slopes receive an abundance of rain (37 in.), but the steppes suffer much from drought (rainfall between 10 and 20 in.). Nearly the whole of the government belongs to the drainage area of the river Terek, but the north-west corner is drained by the upper tributaries of the Kuma. In the lower part of its course the Terek flows at a higher level than that of the neighbouring plains, and is kept in its bed by ernbankments. Nevertheless inundations are frequent and cause great destruction.
The estimated population in 1906 was 1,044,800. The province is divided into seven districts, the chief towns of which are Vladikavkaz, Groznyi, Kizlyar, Nalchik, Pyatigorsk, Sunzhinsk and Khasavyurt, the last two being nomad centres of administration. Agriculture has developed greatly on the prairies, the area under crops being 9 per cent. of the total. Rye, wheat, oats, barley and potatoes are the principal crops. The vine is very extensively cultivated, especially in the districts of Kizlyar and Pyatigorsk, where 1,500,000 gallons of wine are made annually. Live-stock breeding is widely engaged in, and fishing is an important source of income, especially at the mouth of the Terek. Bees are generally kept, and yield every year nearly half a million sterling worth of honey and wax. Melons, cucumbers and sunflowers are extensively grown. The railway, which formerly stopped at Vladikavkaz, has been continued from the Beslan station, near Vladikavkaz, to Petrovsk on the Caspian Sea, and thence to Baku.
TERENCE. Our knowledge of the life of the celebrated Latin playwright, Publius Terentius Afer, is derived chiefly from a fragment of the lost work of Suetonius, De viris illustribus, preserved in the commentary of Donatus, who adds a few words of his own. The prologues to the comedies were among the original sources of Suetonius; but he quotes or refers to the works of various grammarians and antiquaries—Porcius Licinus, Volcacius Sedigitus, Q. Cosconius, Nepos, Santra, Fenestella. There is uncertainty as to both the date of the poet's birth and the manner of his death. His last play was exhibited in 160 B.C., and shortly after its production he went abroad, "when he had not yet completed his twenty-fifth year." Cornelius Nepos is quoted for the statement that he was about the same age as Scipio Africanus the younger (born in 185 or 184 B.C.) and Laelius; while Fenestella, an antiquary of the later Augustan period, represented him as older than either. If Terence was born in 185, he published his six plays between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Even in an imitative artist such precocity of talent is remarkable, and the date is therefore open to legitimate doubt.
He is said to have been born in Carthage, and brought to Rome as a slave. At Rome he was educated like a free man in the house of Terentius Lucanus, a senator, by whom he was soon emancipated; whereupon he took his master's nomen Terentius, and thenceforward his name was Publius Terentius Afer, of which the last member seems to imply that he was not a Phoenician (Poenus) by blood. He was admitted into the intimacy of young men of the best families, such as Scipio, Laelius and Furius Philus; and he enjoyed the favour of older men of literary distinction and official position. In the circle of Scipio he doubtless met the historian Polybius, who was brought to Italy in 167. He is said to have owed the favour of the great as much to his personal gifts and graces as to his literary eminence; and in one of his prologues he declares it to be his ambition, while not offending the many, to please the "boni."
Terence's earliest play was the Andria, exhibited in 166 B.C. A pretty, but perhaps apocryphal, story is told of his having read the play, before its exhibition, to Caecilius (who, after the death of Plautus, ranked as the foremost comic poet), and of
