EUMINANTIA 343 



only one minute nematoid ; its organisation, which was sexually 

 incomplete, neither corresponded with my strongyle embryos, 

 nor, so far as I could judge, with Groeze's Ascaris minutissima 

 microscopica (the Anguillula lumbrici of Diesing and others), 

 nor with Dujardin's Dicelis filaria. It was a very long and 

 narrow creature, but I lost it whilst attempting to secure an 

 accurate measurement. I should say it was about ~th of an 

 inch in length, and not more than 7350 th in breadth. I made a 

 rough outline sketch of it. 



In view of further observations I now placed five more 

 earth-worms in the jar containing strongyle embryos, and I 

 also placed six others in the phial which contained coarser 

 mould, and only a comparatively small number of the original 

 strongyle embryos. The phial was closed with a cork and 

 half buried in the fern-mould of one of my larger Wardian 

 fern-pans. Before this transfer was made I again took an 

 opportunity of ascertaining by microscopic evidence that the 

 embryos lodged in the coarse and fine mould had none of them 

 made the slightest advance in organisation. The worms placed 

 in the jar immediately proceeded to bury themselves. 



At noon on the 1st of November I sought to get further 

 results from the only large free larva which now remained to me 

 (for the fern-pinnules on which the larvae were originally placed 

 had dried up and no third specimen could be discovered). 

 Structurally the larva presented no advance. It there- 

 fore appeared to me necessary to place it under new con- 

 ditions in view of exciting further progress towards sexual 

 maturity and adult growth. To transfer it to the bron- 

 chus of a living calf would, of course, have been the 

 crucial experiment, but the hopelessness of getting any satis- 

 factory result from this solitary transfer deterred me from the 

 attempt. On a larger scale, with many larvae, a positive issue 

 would of course prove decisive. Accordingly, the only thing I 

 could do, in partial imitation of nature, was to try and induce 

 some further changes by placing the larva in human saliva, 

 kept warm artificially. As a first step I immersed the creature 

 in a little of the secretion added to the glass slide, when it - 

 immediately displayed very lively movements, such as could 

 only be fitly described as frantic. This encouraged me to 

 replace the slide under one of the fern shades without applying 

 any additional heat. I then left it. 



At 12.30 p.m. I selected three of the eleven worms lodged iu 



