74 ON THE LIFE AND GROWTH OF NEMATOIDS. 



whole class of Infusoria disappear or be split up into several ? 

 Such is the vast field opened to the meditations of Zoologists. 



In the same number of the Comptes Rendus, M. deQuatre- 

 fages gives extracts of letters from M. V. Beneden, commu- 

 nicating the new and most important results at which he had 

 arrived in prosecuting his researches on the Ccenuri. 



M. Kuchenmeister had a dog which had been fed upon the 

 Ccenui'i of a sheep at the beginning of March, and which 

 passed the taenioid " Proglottis,^'' developed in its intestines 

 from tlie C(B7iurus. 



The dog was killed on the 24th May, and M. Kuchenmeister 

 sent some of the Teenies of the Ccenurus to Louvain, Copen- 

 hagen, and to Giessen. They arrived at Louvain on the 27tb, 

 contained in the white of egg, and were kept alive for eight 

 days, the white of egg being renewed daily. 



On the same day (27th) at 9 a.m. two lambs, about two 

 months old, took each of them half a Proglottis ; in the after- 

 noon each took a whole Proglottis, and on the 3rd June one of 

 the lambs swallowed another whole Proglottis. 



On the 13th June, the first symptoms of ' staggers ' showed 

 themselves, and on the 15th one of the lambs was killed. 

 The head was burning hot, the eyes red ; the legs bent under 

 the body, the animal ran with its head against the railing, and 

 turned round and round in one direction. 



The surface of the hemispheres of the brain above and 

 below presented very irregular grooves, of which there were 

 about a dozen. At the end of these tubes were found as many 

 CcemnH, almost all lodged in the cortical substance of the brain. 

 Some were removed with the membranes. Tiiese Ccenuri were 

 constituted of a simple vesicle of a milky white colour filled 

 with fluid. At that stage they presented no heads {Scolex). 

 They represented the hexacanth embryonic form (^Proscolex), 

 a little more developed than it is when it quits the ovum. 



Yellowish-white corpuscles were subsequently found in the 

 muscles and especially in the diaphragm, and which could be 

 distinguished very well by the naked eye among the red 

 muscular films ; and which, as stated by M. Kuchenmeister, 

 are nothing more than errant individuals, and incapable of 

 further development. 



M. Eschricht gives a similar account of his experiments 

 with the Proglottides sent to Copenhagen, and some interest- 

 ing observations on the mode of development of the Scolex 

 form from the simple vesicle above noticed. 



From Giessen, also, Leuckart reports results of his experi- 

 ments with the same Proglottides, in all respects identical 

 with the above. 



