118 THIRTIETH REPORT ON THE STATE MUSEUM. [g] 



given to it, as the particular species or sex noticed approaches 

 its minimum length of about four inches, or its maximum 

 length of twenty-six inches), it has probably oome under the 

 observation of most persons living in the country. They are 

 occasionally met with in turning up damp soil, where little 

 groups of several individuals are sometimes found knotted 

 together, occupying a cell in the ground. More frequently 

 they occur in standing water by the roadside and in wagon 

 ruts, in drinking troughs, in old wells, and in small pools on 

 the banks of creeks or rivers. In color, shape and size, they 

 bear so strong a resemblance to a hair from the mane or tail 

 of a horse, as partially to excuse the very general superstition 

 which prevails in relation to them, that they have actually 

 originated from such hairs, and that if a horse-hair be placed 

 in a barrel of rain-water, it will in due time be converted into 

 a living hair-snake. Of course, the more intelligent portion 

 of the community need not be told of the utter impossibility 

 of such a transformation, by which a body devoid of ani- 

 mal life can become a living being. It is a law of nature, 

 without exception, that all animal existence, the lowest as 

 well as the highest, commences with an egg. 



The Gordius belongs to that division of the animal kingdom 

 known as the Entozoa, embracing animals which pass a portion 

 of their existence at least, within the bodies of other animals. 

 Our common grasshoppers are frequently infested with Gordii, 

 and I once was so fortunate as to discover an individual in the 

 act of emerging from the head of a grasshopper. They have 

 also been found in crickets, in some of the butterflies, in vari- 

 ous species of beetles, in aquatic larvae of insects as of caddis- 

 worms and May-flies, in the honey-bee, etc. 



Much of the history of the Gordius remains unknown. Dr. 

 Leidy has observed the operation of its laying its eggs, in a 

 long, thread-like string, broken asunder in several places, but 

 aggregating the extraordinary length of ninety-one inches, - 

 more than ten times the length of the worm extruding it. The 

 entire number of eggs contained in this oviposition was, by a 

 careful calculation, computed at nearly seven millions (6,624,- 

 800). The young Gordius, microscopic in size, and very un- 

 like its parent in form, has been observed, and its entrance fol- 

 lowed into the body of water larvae, through the thin integ- 

 uments at the joints of the legs. Their subsequent develop- 

 ment during their condition of internal parasites is unwritten. 



