ORDER INTESTINA. 465 
LERNAA, L., 
Whose body has pretty nearly the same internal and external 
organization as that of the intestina cavitaria; but is pro- 
longed in front by a neck of corneous substances, at the end 
of which is a mouth variously armed, and surrounded or fol- 
lowed by productions of divers forms. This mouth and its 
appendages are insinuated into the skin of the gills of fishes, 
and fix the animal there. The lernez are further distin- 
guished by two cords, sometimes of moderate size, some- 
times very long, or even very much folded, which hang from 
the two sides of their tail, and which may be their ovaries. 
M. Surrirey has found in the cords of a lernza, some eggs, 
which have appeared to him to contain an animal analogous 
to the crustacea, and very different from the lernea itself. 
This fact, compared with what MM. Audouin, and Milne 
Edwards have observed, on the nicothoé of the lobster, has 
caused those naturalists to think that the lerneez may be, for 
the most part, crustacea, grown monstrous after they have 
been fixed. The males would remain free, and that, accord- 
ing to them, would explain why we never find any but fe- 
males. But to establish this opinion, it would be necessary 
to find these males. 
LERNZA, proper, 
Have an oblong body, a long and narrow neck, and sorts of 
horns around the head. 
The most common is that which attacks the cod and other 
gadi. Lernea branchialis, L. Encyc. vers. 1xxvii. 2., from 
one to two inches in length; its mouth is surrounded with 
three ramous horns, which are, as well as the neck, of a deep 
brown. Its body, more enlarged, is bent like an S, and the 
two cords are contorted in a thousand ways. Its horns are 
rooted, as it were, in the gills of fish. 
VOL. XII. wi 3 
