THREAD-WORMS. 303 



this be the Gordius argillaceus of Linnaeus is per- 

 haps doubtful ; but it is quite distinct from a worm 

 somewhat similar, but much thicker, as well as of a 

 darker colour, occasionally found in water, which last 

 I suppose to be the Gordius aquaticus.* 



THREAD-WORMS. 



A REMARKABLE phenomenon occurred at Fair- 

 ford in Gloucestershire in June of the last year 

 (1845). On Sunday the 15th of that month, count- 

 less numbers of thread-worms, apparently allied to 

 the genus Filaria f of naturalists, were found in a 



* It is also quite distinct from the Thread-worms next noticed. 

 It is probably a species of Filaria, but I have not as yet satisfied 

 myself on this head. 



t The worms alluded to in the above notice do not belong to 

 the genus Filaria, but to that of Mermis of Dujardin. The 

 reader is referred to a memoir by that naturalist, published in the 

 Annales des Sciences Naturelles for 1842, (torn, xviii. p. 129,) in 

 which he has given the distinctive characters, and what he con- 

 siders to be the true history (so far as he has yet made it out), 

 of this new genus of worms, closely resembling both Filaria and 

 Gordim, and hitherto confounded with this last by some obser- 

 vers. They are worms, which, it would seem by his account, 

 have been not unfrequently noticed, sometimes in great abundance, 

 on the moist ground after rain, or the morning after a strong 

 dew, sometimes also on newly-dug borders, or on the box edging 

 of borders, twisting themselves round the plants like whitish 

 threads spotted more or less with black internally. He believes 

 them to be the same as what Goeze speaks of as having found in 

 the month of June spread over the newly-dug borders of a gar- 

 den by hundreds after a heavy storm of rain, so long back as the 

 year 1781, but which he confounded with the Gordius aquaticus. 



