34 SPOLIA ZEYIiANTCA. 



GORDIANS OF CEYLON.' 



By Prof. Lorenzo Gamerano. 



{University of Turin.) 



THE Director of the Colombo Museum has sent me for study 

 some Gordian worms from Ceylon. These specimens are 

 interesting, because nothing was known with precision concerning 

 the Gordians of this locality. 



Oerley, in his work entitled " On Hair-worms in the Collection 

 of the British Museum" (Ann. Nat. Hist., Series 5, Vol. III., 1881) 

 mentions a female example from Ceylon, referring it without 

 comment to the species Gordius tricuspidatus of L. Dufour. 



Since the researches made by various authors and by met 

 concerning those species in which the females have the posterior 

 extremity of the body divided into three post-cloacal lobes (Gen. 

 Parayordius, Camer.), it has become necessary to re-examine 

 Oerley's specimen in order to ascertain to which species of Para- 

 gordius it may belong. 



Baird, in his '• Catalogue of the Species of Entozoa contained in 

 the Collection of the British Museum " (London, 1853, and P. Zool. 

 Soc, 1853, p. 20), describes a Gordius verrucosus, giviug as locali- 

 ties South Africa and Ceylon. In my Monograph of the Gordians, 

 referred to above, I have, on page 416, pointed out that Baird's 

 species cannot be identified by reason of the inadequacy of the 

 description and figure given by the author. 



Recently, by the courtesy of Prof. A. Skorikow, I have examined 

 the rich material of Gordiidse in the possession of the Zoological 

 Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. 

 In this material I have found a female worm from Ceylon 

 belonging to the genus Chordodes. 



* Translated from Prof. Gamerano's report entitled " Gordii di Ceylan " in 

 Boll. Mus. Torino, Vol. XVIIL. No. 438, March 9, 1903. 



The GordiidiB are very long: threadworms (Nemathelminthes) with smooth 

 round body covered by a glisteninji" cuticle in which no structure is discernible, 

 without close examination. They are semi-aquatic and semi-parasitic, being 

 found during certain phases of their life-history in water and moist earth and at 

 other periods parasitic in the body of aquatic larvnn and carnivorous insects. 



t L. Gamerano. Monografia dei Gordii, Mem. Ac. Torino, Ser. 2. Vol. XLVII. 

 1«»7. 



