45 



WORMS. 



the microscopic fungi growing in them. These worms now appear much rarer 

 in vinegar than former observers have represented ; and it is suggested that the 

 reason of this may be that vinegar is no longer made from wine or beer ; since, in 

 the vinegar obtained from the two latter, there probably remained much sugar 

 and albumen, which form a favourable basis for the growth of fungi, and therefore 

 for the eels. The maturing and propagation of these animals cannot take place 

 in pure vinegar, but only amongst fungi, where a nitrogenous diet is offered. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THREAD-WORM, Nematoxys (400 times enlarged), 



Vinegar now never contains adult eels, but, at most, larvse and the innumerable 

 little creatures supposed to be seen upon shaking a bottle of vinegar are, for the 

 most part, nothing but the skin-skeletons of these animals. Nearly allied is the 

 wheat-eel (Tylenchus tritici), which is the cause of a serious disease to the cereal 

 from which it derives its name. In the ears of wheat affected by this worm the 

 grains are misshapen, blackish, and consist of a thick hard scale enclosing a white 

 powdery substance, composed of the larval forms of the worm. If grain 

 in this state is sown in moist ground, it merely rots; but the larvae awake to 

 activity, and scatter over the ground in search of another growing blade of corn. 



