238 DISEASES OF INSECTS. 



being struck with the circumstance, caught the animal, 

 upon which its hind legs were immediately detached 

 from it. His surprise was greatly increased when he 

 saw issue from its body a cylindrical worm about two 

 feet and a half in length. Upon being called, Dr. M. 

 soon recognised it for a Gordius or Filaria , and on his 

 putting it into water, it moved in it with great velocity, 

 twisting its long and slender body in all directions. 

 Upon opening the body of the grasshopper, nothing ap- 

 peared within it but the intestine shrunk up to a thread. 

 A few days after, another was brought, which appeared 

 in full vigour, but its abdomen was enormously distended, 

 and from it another worm was extracted, which remained 

 without motion rolled in a spiral direction : intending to 

 preserve this in spirits of wine as it had become flat he 

 first immersed it in water, that it might recover if possi- 

 ble its cylindrical form. Upon immersion a movement 

 took place in the animal, and it gradually recovered its 

 plumpness ; but it still remained without motion, as if 

 dead, for nearly five days, when another living specimen 

 being brought and placed with it, as soon as water was 

 poured on them, the seemingly dead one began to show 

 by a slight oscillation in its extremities that life was not 

 extinct in it. Fresh water being poured upon it, at the 

 end of the day it had recovered all its strength and 

 agility. He afterwards often repeated the same experi- 

 ment with a similar result a . From this account it ap- 

 pears that the Gordius or Filaria has a property re- 

 sembling that of the Vibrio Tritici, so well described 

 and so beautifully figured by M. Bauer b , of apparently 

 dying and being resuscitated by immersion in water. 

 a Matthey ubi supr. b Phihs, Trans. 1823. 8. t, i. ii. 



