GROUND FLUKE. 315 



GROUND FLUKE.* 



THERE is a small animal, somewhat resembling a 

 liver fluke in shape, but more like a leech in its 

 motions, common in this neighbourhood in damp 

 woods and plantations, secreting itself under stones 

 and rotten sticks. Of this animal, I can find no 

 notice whatever by British naturalists. It is, how- 

 ever, most accurately described by Miiller, under 

 the name ofJFasciola terrestris, which I have ventured 

 to translate ground fluke, as an English name for this 

 apparently neglected species. Its general appearance 

 is more like that of a Planaria than any thing else I 

 am acquainted with ; and to that genus, as adopted by 

 modern authors, if it be not a distinct one of itself, 

 it is probably to be referred. It so closely resem- 

 bles, indeed, some of the planaricB common in stag- 

 nant waters, that I have sometimes thought (espe- 

 cially from the circumstance of its often occurring 

 on the banks of ponds, under stones resting upon 

 the soft mud,) that it was only one of that tribe, 

 which had been left on land by the partial drying up 

 of the waters. But I nave never noticed it in such 

 situations, except where the ponds have occurred in 

 woods ; and in certain extensive plantations at Bot- 

 tisham Hall it is so generally distributed, occurring 

 where no water ever stagnates at all, (though the soil 

 is of course damp, as it always is amongst trees,) 

 that I am now quite convinced it is strictly a terres- 



* Fasciola terrestris, Miiller, Hist. Verm. vol. i. pt. ii. p. 68. 



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