198 RESEARCHES IX HELMINTHOI.OGV AND TARASITOLOGY. 



[December. 1887. No. 548. See Bibliography.] 



Bot-larvce in tlw Terrapin. — Prof. Leidy remarked that the habit.s 

 of a naturalist often led him to observe things in our daily life which 

 usually escape the notice of others. In our food he had frequent 

 occasion to detect parasites which he preferred to reject, but which 

 are unconsciously swallowed by others. While he liked a herring, 

 he never ate one without first removing the conspicuously coiled 

 worms on the surface of the roe, and he had repeatedly extracted 

 from a piece of black bass or a shad a thread worm which others 

 would not distinguish from a vessel or a nerve. While he did not 

 object to the little parasitic crab of the 03'ster, he made it a point to 

 remove the equally frequent leech from the clam. It was in a piece 

 of ham he was eating that he first noticed the trichina, which w^as 

 no doubt one of the causes that led Moses to declare the pig to be 

 unclean ; and in the hundred tapeworms he had examined from our 

 fellow-citizens during the past twenty-five years he had ascertained 

 that they had all been derived from rare beef. He continued : In a 

 visit to Charleston, S. C, before the late war, at an evening enter- 

 tainment, among other viands were nicely browned slices of the 

 drum-fish, Pogo}iias chromis. A friend informed him that some por- 

 tions were more gelatinous and delicate than others, and helped him 

 to what was supposed to be one of such. On cutting into it he ob- 

 served imbedded in the flesh a soft mass which appeared of enigmatic 

 character. The following day he procured from market a drum-fish, 

 on the dissection of which he found imbedded in the tail several egg- 

 shaped masses about three inches long and less than an inch thick, 

 which proved to be a large coiled worm <^Acanthor/iync/ins rcptans) 

 ( Proc. A. N. S. 1858, III). This it was that gave delicacy to the 

 dainty, and in this instance the parasite seems to enhance the excel- 

 lence of the food. At another evening entertainment nearer home 

 he partook of some stewed terrapins. Taking into his mouth wdiat 

 appeared to be an egg, it produced such an impression as led to its 

 rejection. Seeming so peculiar, he tied it in the corner of his hand- 

 kerchief for more convenient examination. The specimen, now 

 exhibited, was a membranous bag, which contained thirty yellowish 

 white maggots from 8 to 12 mm. long by 1.5 to 3 mm. broad. They 

 are the larvae of a bot-fly, and resemble those of the ijastrophilus of 

 the horse. Their characters are as follows : 



Body of the larva fusiform, acute anteriorly, obtuse posteriorly, 

 consisting of twelve segments including the head, w'hich is armed 

 Avith a pair of .strong, black, hooked maxillae ; terminal segment 



