CHAPTER XIV 



THE PARASITIC NEMATODE : HABRONEMA MUSCAE CARTER 



Carter (1861) appears to be the first to have described a 

 parasitic worm in M. domestica. He describes a bi-sexual nematode 

 infesting this insect in Bombay and found that : " Every third fly 

 contains from two to twenty or more of these worms, which are 

 chiefly congregated in, and confined to, the proboscis, though 

 occasionally found among the soft tissues of the head and posterior 

 part of the abdomen." His description of this nematode, to which 

 he gave the name Filaria miiscae, is as follows : " Linear, cylin- 

 drical, faintly striated transversely, gradually diminishing towards 

 the head, which is obtuse and furnished with four papillae at a 

 little distance from the mouth, two above and two below; diminish- 

 ing also towards the tail, which is short and terminated by a 

 dilated round extremity covered with short spines. Mouth in the 

 centre of the anterior extremity. Anal orifice at the root of the 

 tail." He gives the length as being one-eleventh of an inch and 

 the breadth as one three hundred and thirteenth of an inch. In his 

 description of his figures of the worm he calls what is evidently 

 the anterior region of the intestine the "liver." Leidy (1874) 

 found from one to three specimens of F. muscae in about one fly 

 in five. He stated that this parasitic worm was one-tenth of an 

 inch long and occurred in the proboscis. Ercolani (1874) describes 

 the discovery of a nematode in the proboscides of flies. Yon Linstow 

 (1875) describes a small nematode, which he calls Filaria stomoxeos, 

 fi-om the head of Stomoxys calcitrans; this larva measured 1'6 to 

 2 mm. in length. Ransom (1913) points out that this may be the 

 larva of Habronema microstoma. Harrington (1883) refers to a 



