72 



to be a simple ventricular cavity, occupying the whole length of the 

 body or thicker portion, and terminating posteriorly in a blind, 

 pointed extremity, as shown in Fig. 14, a, «, a, but upon closer exa- 

 mination this ventricular cavity is found to be formed of a folded or 

 spiral tube, as shown in Fig. 14, b, b. The caudal extremity appears 

 to be solid. The external surface is marked with delicate and regu- 

 lar circular ruga?, as in the parent animal. The longitudinal, mus- 

 cular bands are not evident. The interior usually contains coarse 

 granular matter, much resembling that in which the young Filarice 

 lie, but mixed with many larger, more refractive, globular masses, 

 apparently of an oily nature. Although no muscular fibres are evi- 

 dent under the closest examination, there can be no doubt of the 

 existence of muscular substance in some form or another, as when 

 first extracted the young Filarice are very active. They are also 

 extremely tenacious of life, and will revive after having undergone 

 a considerable degree of desiccation : a fact which accident has 

 enabled me to verify from actual observation. 



In a case in which extraction of the worm was going on, the man 

 himself, in pulling at it one evening, broke off a portion about four 

 inches in length, and in order to preserve it to show me on the fol- 

 lowing morning, he placed it between the leaves of a book. He gave 

 it me in the morning, when it was quite dry and flattened. As I was 

 desirous of examining the structure of the worm, I placed this dried 

 portion in some lukewarm water, in order to soften it, and was sur- 

 prised a short time afterwards, on proceeding to the examination, to 

 observe the young in active motion, and which continued for some 

 hours. T am unable to assign the limits of this vitality or the con- 

 ditions necessary to its maintenance for any length of time ; but ex- 

 periments with this object would be highly interesting, though it ap- 

 pears probable that they would require for their complete success to 

 be undertaken in the countries where the worm is endemic. The 

 young, when fully formed, do not appear to be attached in any way 

 to the parent animal, and they are nearly always of a uniform size, and 

 consequently may be supposed to be of the same age, and I have not 

 observed any differences in this respect in the successive portions of 

 the parent worm as they have been brought away. But there is no- 

 thing to disprove the supposition that the young lodged in the poste- 

 rior part of the body of the parent may be undergoing progressive 

 development, whilst their companions are being slowly issued into 

 the world at the other extremity. I have occasionally, though very 

 rarely, met with instances of imperfectly formed young ones, one of 



