MO. 2194. NUllTIl AMERICA}^ PARASITIC VurEFODlS—WILiSUX. .'{ 



HISTORY. 



Early literature and natural history. — Most of the genera und spe- 

 cies belonging to this family are buried in the liesh of their host, 

 with the posterior portion of the body and the egg tubes hanging 

 free in the surrounding water so as to be readily seen when the fish 

 are handled. Many of the species also are of excei)tionally largv 

 size, reaching 4 and sometimes even 6 inches in length. Such remark- 

 able size and prominence called them to the attention of fishoi-men 

 at a very early date, and we find mention of these parasites in se\eral 

 of the classical writers, the stories about them doubtless being de- 

 rived from the fishermen. 



Aristotle, Pliny, Oppianus, and Athenaeus all desciibed the suffer- 

 ings of the tunny and swordfish in the Mediterranean in consequence 

 of the irritation caused by these pests. Two of the early natural 

 histories, Aquatilium Animalium Ilistoriae by Salviani (1554, p. 126) 

 and Libri de piscibus marinis by Rondelet (1554, p. 249), repeated 

 these accounts, and the latter author gave a figure of a tunny with 

 one of the copepods fastened near the pectoral fin. Conrad Gesner, 

 in his Historia Animalium — De Aquatilibus (1560, p. 112), gave a 

 more extended account of the parasite, described its structure and 

 appearance, and presented an enlarged figure of it, besides repeating 

 the figure given by Rondelet. But his description and figure resemble 

 a Lernaeopod far more than they do a Lernaean. Boccone, in his 

 Recherches et Observations naturelles (1671, p. 281), tells us that 

 the fishermen on the coast of Messina knew of another parasite which 

 they called " Sanguisuca," and which buried itself in the flesh of 

 the swordfish ; and he adds with reference to it . . . " This sang- 

 sue appears to be tormented by a louse which I haNC never seen on 

 any other animal. It is of the size of a pea and attaches itself firmly 

 to the animal" (p. 292), Boccone considered his species the same 

 as that of Gesner, but the figures he gave proved it to be a PenneUa, 

 while the "louse" on it was doubtless a goose barnacle similar to 

 those shown in figure 147. 



Lernaea and Lernaeocera. — Linnaeus obtained from a European 

 carp, to which he gave the name " Cyprinus carassius^''' a parasite 

 upon which he established the genus Lernea, in 1746,^ calling the 

 species simply ''''Lernea tentaculis quatuory In the following year 

 he described another species, from the gills of a Gadus, under the 

 designation " Lernea cauda dwplici teretiy - In the tenth edition of 

 his Systema Naturae (1758, p. 655) he designated the first of these 

 species as Lernea cyprinacea, the second one as L. asellina, and he 

 transferred to this genus Lernaea a third species, salmonea, which 



»Fnuna Suecica, p. 307. fig. 1282. 



'Iter Westrogotha. 1747, p. 171, pi. 3, fig. 4, a and b. 



