140 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



horrid''." — A medical friend of mine, at Ipswich, gav& 

 rae this winter an apode larva voided by a person of 

 that place with his urine, which I now preserve in spi- 

 rits and can show you when you visit me. It appears 

 to me to belong to the Diptera order, yet not to the fly 

 tribe {Muscidct)^ but rather to the Tipulidce, with 

 which however it does not seem to agree so entirely as 

 to take away ali doubt. It is a very singular larva, and 

 I can find none in any author that I have had an oppor- 

 tunity of consulting which at all resembles it. That 

 you may know it, should you chance to meet with it, 

 I shall here describe it. Bodj/, three fourths of an 

 inch in length, and about a line in breadth ; opaque, 

 of a pale yellow colour ; cylindrical, tapering some- 

 what at each extremity ; consisting of twenty articula- 

 tions without the head : Mead reddish brown, heart- 

 shaped, much smaller than the following joint ; armed 

 with two unguiform mandibles ; with a biarticulate 

 palpus attached exteriorly to the base of each. These 

 mandibles appear to be moved by a narrow black cen- 

 tral tendon under the dorsal skin terminating a little 

 beyond the base of the first segment ; besides this, 

 there are four otliers, two on each side of it, the outer 

 ones diverging, much slenderer, and very short. The 

 last or anal joint of the body very minute ; exerting 

 two short, filiform horns, or ratlier respiratory organs. 

 I could discover, in this animal, no respiratory plates, 

 such as are found in the larva? of MuscidaB, nor were 

 the tracheas visible. When given to me, it was alive 



* In passing tbrougli this parish last spring, I inquired of tlie mail- 

 coachman whethrr h;^ had heard of this story ; and he said the fact was 

 well known. 



