138 RESEARCHES IN HELMINTHOLOGY AND PARASITOLOGY. 



the 8th of last August by Mr. P. H. Foster, of Babylon, Long 

 Island, N. Y. It was one of two specimens which Mr. Foster had 

 taken from apple worms found concealed in a woolen rag tied around 

 the trunk of an apple tree in his garden. The niermis is 7^-^ inches 

 long, and had been retained alive in a box with moist spagnum. It 

 exhibits a condition which Prof. L. had observed on several previ- 

 ous occasions in other species of Meniiis. An intermediate portion 

 of the body, apparently from injury, had died and was decomposed, 

 while the extremities held together by the integument were still 

 alive and active. This condition has been observed to be main- 

 tained for .some time — that is to say, for some weeks. 



[April, 1877. No. 438. See Bibliography.] 



On Intestinal Parasites of Termes Flavipes. — Prof. Leidy remarked 

 that in seeking small animals beneath stones and fragments of wood 

 in our forests, observing the very common White Ant, Termes 

 flavipes, he noticed that the intestine of the insect, .seen in the 

 translucent abdomen, was distended with brown matter. Feeling 

 curious to learn the exact nature of this matter, he was surprised 

 to find that it consisted largely of infusorial and other parasites, 

 mingled with minute particles of decayed wood. In many instances 

 the parasites are .so numerous as to make up the greater portion of 

 the bulk of the intestinal pulp. Every individual he had examined, 

 of Avorkers, soldiers, and winged forms, was infested with the para- 

 sites, which may be estimated by millions. As the discovery to 

 him of this new world of parasitic life was recent, he had not yet 

 had time to sufficiently examine scientific literature to ascertain 

 whether the parasites had been discovered and described by others. 

 M. C. Lespes, in a memoir on the organization of the Termes luci- 

 fugns of France, published in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles 

 for 1856, remarks that the intestine is usually occupied by a kind of 

 brown pulp, a living agglomeration of infusoria, and in another 

 paper in the same volume, after describing a nematoid worm, Isacis 

 migrans, infesting the Termes, he remarks that he had found in the 

 intestine of the insect a great quantity of parasites, upon which he 

 proposed to say something in the future 



The parasites observed in our White Ant consist of five different 

 kinds, of which three are animal and two vegetable in character. 

 One of the latter consists of filaments of the algoid form he had 

 once described under the name of Arthromitns ; the other, not so 

 frequent, is a Spirillum, probably S. nndula. 



