Mr John Goodsir on Gi/mnori/nchus horridus. 11 



The cyst enclosing the worm is double. The outer coat is 

 rough, fiocculent, and adherent to the parenchyma of the liver. 

 The anterior extremity is dilated, and in all the specimens 

 was situate immediately under the peritoneum. The poste- 

 rior extremity, again, was so attenuated tliat it was traced with 

 great difficulty, as it lay coiled about in all directions through 

 the substance of the organ. Within the outer coat, another 

 cyst is situate closely investing the worm ; it is smooth, trans- 

 parent, thin, and elastic, and does not adhere to the outer. 

 The worm is visible through this second tunic, and lies with 

 its anterior bulbous extremity packed up in the vesicular por- 

 tion of the cyst. When one of the animals was released from 

 its prison, and placed in water, it dilated its anterior extre- 

 mity, projected its head and neck, and presented the appear- 

 ance exhibited in Fig. 6, Plate I. The head and neck, when 

 withdrawn, are lodged in the cervical receptacle. There 

 is no particular muscular arrangement to effect this. The 

 tissue of this, as well as of the rest of the animal, was the 

 primitive granular tissue lately described by Mr Forbes. 

 The four- armed tentacula are retracted by four distinct 

 muscles, all of which consist of granular tissue. The ar- 

 rangement of this part of the animal corresponds exactly 

 with the same part in the Bothriocephalus corollatus as de- 

 scribed by Leblond in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 

 1836. The motion of these p^rts in both animals is simi- 

 lar, and the tissue is identical with that denominated by 

 Leblond " Sarcode," or elementary texture, the granular tis- 

 sue to which I have already referred. 



The body, when gently compressed between two plates of 

 glasSj exhibited transparent transverse articulations at dis- 

 tances of one-third to half an inch. The most careful exa- 

 mination, however, revealed no nutritive or generative organs 

 in any of the segments. The dilated cervical receptacle, into 

 which the head is retracted, did not appear to communicate 

 with any arrangement of tubes or cavities in the elongated 

 body. 



The most interesting circumstance in the history of this en- 

 tozoon, is the manner in which it is enclosed in a firm and 

 close cyst. It appears to me that this cyst is not altogether 

 the result of irritation of the surrounding tissues. The outer 



