34 RESEARCHES IN HELMINTIIOLOGY AND PARASITOLOCxY. 



frequently being found in water filling a wagon rut or the drinking 

 trough of a horse. I have even been informed by some persons, 

 though b}' those not given to observ^e such matters, that they had 

 perceived the direct transmutation of horse hairs into writhing 

 worms, and I was at one time so silly as to be led to try the experi- 

 ment, with what success it is unnecessary for me to state. 



The Gordii alluded to in the mass were blackish brown in color, 

 from 6 to lo inches in length, and most of them had attached to the 

 posterior extremit}- of the body a long, white, opaque cord, in se\- 

 eral instances nearh^ as long and as thick as the worms themselves. 

 These cords, some of the members may recollect, I pointed out at the 

 time as being strings of the ova of the Gordii, but I then was not so 

 well acquainted with the history of the Gordius as at present — ^that 

 is to say, I did not know that we have no knowledge whatever of 

 its origin or development — and although through curiosit}^ I traced 

 for a few days the development of the embryo in ova, yet I did not 

 do it with that care which its importance demanded. But however 

 imperfect hav^e been the observations made with this acknowledg- 

 ment, I have thought it would be well to record them with the hope 

 that they may not only throw some light upon the obscure nature 

 of the Gordms, but also lead others to the discovery of a similar 

 opportunity of investigating this animal under more favorable cir- 

 cumstances of locality and information. The observations I have 

 withheld for a length of time in the hope that I might be able to 

 verify or correct them, but failing to do so to the present time I 

 now reluctantly put them forth from my notes taken at the time. 



The white cords before mentioned consisted of numerous oval 

 ova closely aggregated together. These when examined beneath 

 the microscope on the first day after I obtained them exhibited a 

 white granular yolk divided into four globular masses connected 

 together and surrounded by a transparent albumen. Each mass con- 

 tained in its center a clear cell or vesicle. On the second day the 

 separation among the yolk masses was less distinct, and upon the 

 third day the whole had united into one oval, finely granular body, 

 and the interior vesicles had disappeared. The fourth and fifth days 

 no perceptible change was observable. From the sixth to the eighth 

 day the yolk had become conical in form, and upon the ninth day the 

 base of the cone exhibited a cleft or fissure which by the tenth day had 

 extended two-thirds the length of the mass. During the whole of 

 this period the yolk retained its granular character and was motion- 

 less. Upon the eleventh day it resembled a cylinder doubled upon 

 itself, or the outline of the embryo had been formed, and one ex- 



