254 Dr. Von Siebokl 07i a Double-bodied Intestinal Worm^ 



time after their appearance from the shell, and kills them. 

 His account of the disease is as follows (p. 194): it "is a fre- 

 quent gaping, attended with an extension of the neck, like 

 suffocation, and sometimes an apparent phthisical affection or 

 irritation of the lungs." The neck and lungs of the fowls in 

 which this worm was discovered were found much inflamed. 



The supposition of the editor of the Wernerian Memoirs 

 (p. 199.), that the worms, discovered also in the windpipe of 

 hens and turkeys by Dr. Wiesenthal of Baltimore (in the Me- 

 dical and Physical Journal^ 1799, vol. ii. p. 204.) resemble 

 those described by Montagu, I cannot confirm, as in those the 

 characteristic lateral process is wanting*. Rudolphi believed 

 Montagu's worm to be the Disto?nu?n lineare, which he had dis- 

 covered in the mucous skin of young poultry-j-; if, however, 

 Rudolphi's description of Distomu?n lineareX be compared with 

 that which the English naturalist has given of his Fasciola §, 

 there will be found a great difference between the two animals. 



This is all that I have been able to find in scientific works on 

 this worm, and what satisfied me less, was to find upon close 

 examination of this worm how little its true structure was 

 known to Montagu. I have been fortunate enough to find this 

 parasitic animal in the windpipe of three different species of 

 birds, namely, in Phasianus Gallus, Picus viridis, and Cypselus 

 apus, I discovered a single one at first in October 1833 at 

 Heilsberg in a very lean hen; in May of the following year I 

 found among eleven chimney swallows, which were taken in 

 Heilsberg, in one bird two individuals at once, and a fourth 

 in a green woodpecker which was shot this year near Danzig. 

 I have in all my dissections of birds during two years, in which 

 time I have examined a great number, always searched the 

 trachea and its branches^ and have found the Syngamus tra- 

 chealis only in the three birds mentioned ; so that I must be- 

 lieve the worm is here a rarity, and only occurs occasionally 

 and alone, while in England it is found so often and collected 

 in such numbers in the windpipes of poultry, often committing 



• I was not able to compare the work of Dr.Wiesenthal more closely. 



t Rudolphi, Synopsis, p. 414. 



j Rudolphi, Historia Natur. etc. vol. ii. 1. p. 414. 



§ Wern.Soc, p. 197- " Body round, acuminated at the posterior end, the 

 lower aperture produced on a long stalk or arm, that extends rather beyond 

 the anterior end of the body, where the other aperture is placed, and is not 

 above half the size of that part : these openings spread a little, or are sub- 

 infundibuliform ; the larger appears to be the mouth, and is slightly sex- 

 partite; that on the arm is used as a sucker, and is the par*, by which it ad- 

 neres to the inside of the trachea: the divarication takes place at about one 

 fifth part of the length of the body : the colour is red, and the intestine*, 

 which are extremely numerous and tortuous, are white." 



