215 
NemaAtopa. 
Mermithidae. 
Mermis nigrescens, ‘Dujardin. This long, thread-like worm 
has been appearing in many parts of the country during the recent 
spell of thundery weather, and was found in the gardens on 
June 16. A parasite of insects, it is frequently found upon the 
leaves of plants, not, however, necessarily having recently 
emerged from its host, but from the ground out of which it appears 
during periods of excessive moisture for the purpose of oviposi- 
tion. According to Hagmeier,* two years may be passed in the 
soil by the female before its eggs are ripe for laying. When laid 
they contain a large, coiled-up embryo. It is not known how 
this, on becoming a young worm, enters the body of its host. The 
eggs are probably eaten, in the case of a caterpillar, with its food, 
hatch in the gut, and then burrow through its wall into the body- 
cavity. 
The egg itself of I. nigrescens consists of two shells: an inner 
one, thick and brown in colour, containing the embryo, and an 
outer one—thin, colourless, and transparent—bearing at each pole 
a filamentous process frayed out at the end into a bunch of minute 
mag by means of which it adheres firmly to the surface of a 
eaf. 
It is the brown colour of the inner shell of the ege which is seen 
through the body-wall of the female worm, and which in quantity 
appears as a line down the axis of the animal. After oviposition 
the worm becomes white. The adult attains a length of 60-150 
m There is doubtless much confusion between this 
species and M. albicans, von Siebold. | 
H: AwBaytris. 
FLORA. 
PHANEROGAMS. 
- Myrrhis odorata, Scop. In quantity and spre 
Herbarium, May, 1920, IV. B. Penis. : 
araxacum obliquum, Dahist. Near the Herbari April, 
1918... W.B. Peril, Seon: came 
Cynodon Dactylon, Pers. Abundant in the turf to the west of 
the new Range, Sir W. T hiselton-Dyer. 
a isi HEPATIcAE. 
z Riccia fluitans, Z. In the pond in the Berberis Dell, F. 
Escombe, Oct. 24, 1917. 
ading near the 
Fonat. 
Lepiota nauseosa, Wakef. N thes Hous 
He DARAIS GM ee eS. OP 
lerulius pinastri, Burt. Tropical Pits, September, 1917. 
Boydia remuliformis, A. Z. Sm. Ab : Ne 
Ilex Aquifolium, Arboretum, g ape fl co on dead twigs 0 
* Zool. Jahrb., Syst., xxii. (1912) p. 521. 
