THE BURBOT 93 



but the burbot and the pike are the hosts of a peculiarly 

 formidable parasitic worm, which causes great distress to human 

 beings in those countries where it is the custom to eat these 

 fish raw ; wherefore a brief notice of Bothriocephalus may not 

 be deemed out of place. 



Bothriocephalus latus is one of those so-called worms, of 

 which the tape-worm (T'^nia) is the type, which, at certain 

 stages, inhabit the intestines of vertebrate animals, and at other 

 stages establish themselves in the muscles and other organs of 

 the body, setting up serious disturbance and in extreme cases 

 causing death. The creature consists of what is called a head, 

 but which is really nothing more than a mechanism of attachment, 

 whence springs a rapidly-growing chain of joints. At first these 

 joints are slender, but they gradually increase in size until, at a 

 certain distance from the point of attachment, they develop 

 sexual apparatus, and each joint becomes a complete individual, 

 remaining, however, a link in the lengthening chain. The total 

 length of the chain, or colony, may be as much as twenty to 

 thirty feet. This unlovely community Hes at ease, absorbing 

 nutriment from the food swallowed by its host, each joint or 

 individual in the chain forming within itself a number of 

 eggs, which, when ripe, are expelled, and, in order to fulfil 

 their destiny, must pass, it is believed, into the water. There 

 a free-swimming organism escapes from the egg, finds its way 

 into a burbot or a pike, and lodges itself as a sexless bladder- 

 worm in the muscles of the fish. There it awaits passively 

 further development, which comes when the uncooked flesh 

 of the fish is eaten by man, dog, or other animal, and each 

 bladder-worm becomes the " head," or anchor, of a new 

 colony of the so-called worm. Luckily there exists some 

 prejudice in this country against eating raw fish ; in certain 

 parts of Scandinavia, Russia, and Central Europe, where the 

 peasantry dispense with that precaution and eat pike and 

 burbot uncooked, they suffer very considerably from this 

 filthy parasite. 



