324 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



FILARIA IN THE BRAIN OF THE WATER-TURKEY. 



In the course of some explorations in Florida several years 

 ago Professor Wyman ascertained that, in a large percentage 

 of cases, the brain of the Florida water-turkey (Plotus anhin- 

 ga) contained numerous specimens of a Filaria (F. anhingce) 

 in the space between the cerebral lobes and the cerebellum. 

 The professor demonstrated the fact that these worms are 

 viviparous, their oviducts containing eggs in all stages of de- 

 velopment, from the egg just formed to the mature embryo. 

 In the lower portion of the oviduct the eggs were hatched 

 and ready for exclusion. 



A more recent investigation has shown the professor the 

 existence of both sexes of the Filaria in some specimens of 

 the Plotus, while two contained female worms only. Where 

 both sexes were present the eggs were found in various stages 

 of development ; in the others, where females only occurred, 

 the oviducts were equally full of eggs, but there were no 

 signs of impregnation, and no developmental changes. From 

 these facts it seems almost certain that impregnation, with 

 the Filaria, takes place in the head of the bird, and that un- 

 less both sexes are present the brood fails. It is also inferred, 

 on the supposition that the worms are migratory, that it is 

 in the head of the Anhinga that the sexual organs are devel- 

 oped, the young arriving there in an immature state. Every 

 effort to find traces of this worm in other parts of the body, 

 or even of the brain, failed entirely. American Naturalist, 

 1872. 



USE OF THE BILL OF THE HUIA BIRD. 



A puzzling fact in natural history has been the difference 

 in the shape of the bill of the male and female of a certain 

 New Zealand bird, called the huia {Heterolocha acutirostris), 

 which in the former sex is lengthened and much curved, while 

 in the latter it is nearly straight. Mr. Buller, however, in a 

 recent work upon New Zealand ornithology, remarks that 

 the two sexes work together in extracting grubs from rotten 

 wood, the bill of the male being adapted for attacking the 

 more decayed portions of the wood, chiseling out the prey aft- 

 er the manner of some woodpeckers, while the female probes 

 with her long pliant bill the other cells, where the hardness 



