Diagram of Proglottis. 249 



Figure 3. 



Diagram of a ripe Proglottis, as cast free from the posterior end of the compound 

 colony ; one of the 'Vermes Cucurbitini' of the older authors. 



Its edges are rounded off; the penis is figured as protruded from 

 the orifice into which the generative ducts open ; but the rest of 

 the generative organs are overwhelmed by the abundant ova. But 

 such a proglottis as this might retain, even when detached from 

 the strobile, the power both of vegetative growth and of locomo- 

 tion ; and whilst moving freely in the contents of the digestive 

 tract it was infesting, might grow to be as large as the entire 

 strobile. Such proglottides have been mistaken for Trematodes, 

 or for Taeniae without segments. By means of the three muscular 

 layers of the cortex, the proglottis can move with considerable 

 power and effect from place to place, when discharged from the 

 intestinal canal of its host, so long as it is in an atmosphere 

 saturated with watery vapour. Such proglottides have been aptly 

 styled ' ovaria ambulantia.'' The ova are ultimately set free by the 

 spontaneous dehiscence of the cortical walls. 



See Van Beneden, Memoire sur les Vers Intestinaux, 1858, p. 249, 

 and pi. xxvi., fig. 16, whence this figure is taken. For the 

 muscular layers in the cortex of the Taeniadae and Trematodes, 

 see Leuckart, Die Menschlichen Parasiten, Bd. i., p. 459. 



Figure 4. 



Segment of Taenia Solium, to show the dendritic outgrowing of the uterus, about 

 twice the natural size ; after Leuckart, I. c, p. i77j ^0- ^9- 



This segment is not so far advanced towards maturity as the 

 segment figured at 3, its angles not being rounded ofi*; but the 

 uterus and its contents have increased and encroached so much 

 upon the rest of the generative organs, as to have caused their 

 disappearance. In Taenia solium, these dendritic ramifications 

 would have a yellowish colour, and be found to be made up of 

 aggregations of embryos, such as the one figured at 5, enclosed in 

 a hard resistent shell. It has been remarked that the proglottides 



