[11] ON MERMIS ACUMINATA. 123 



white. * * * * Prof. Leidy, of Philadelphia * * * 

 describes several, and mentions one which he calls the white 

 hair-worm (Mermis), which is the only one that corresponds 

 with the specimen I have reference to. 



Prof. Riley informs me that subsequent to his reference, 

 above cited, he had obtained two specimens of Mermis from 

 Carpocapsa larvse found in fruit, and two other examples 

 from larvae taken from beneath bandages placed around the 

 trunks of apple trees, to serve as a place of retreat for the larvae 

 during their transformations, from which they could be taken 

 and destroyed. He had also taken a similar specimen from 

 the posterior part of the brain of an owl. 



The specimen taken by Prof. Riley from the brain of the 

 owl may be presumed to be the same or closely allied to those 

 described by Prof. Wyman,* which he has found so common, 

 in the brain of the snake-bird or water-turkey, in Florida (in 

 seventeen out of nineteen specimens shot), that their presence 

 might be presumed to be the normal condition of the bird. 

 Prof. Wyman finds them to correspond so closely to the 

 Eustrongylus papillosus of Diesing, that he thought they 

 might prove to be identical. In every instance they were 

 coiled up on the back of the cerebellum, in numbers varying 

 from two to eight. Figures of them are given, showing the 

 male and female, their position on the cerebellum, enlarged 

 views of their extremities, and the development, within the 

 oviduct, of the egg to the free young embryo. Nothing is 

 known of their transfer from the oviduct, through some other 

 animal probably, to the brain of another bird. 



In a subsequent communication to the American Natural- 

 ist (Vol. VI, p. 560), Prof. Wyman presents very interesting 

 additional observations upon these parasites, and, upon the 

 bird in which they have their habitat, and designates them as 

 Filaria anhingce. 



The communication of Prof. Leidy to the Philadelphia 

 Academy, to which reference has been made, in which he 

 describes Mermis acuminata, is reported in the Proceedings 

 of the Academy of Natural Science, of Philadelphia, for 

 February, 1875, as follows : 



Professor Leidy remarked that Mr. Thomas Meehan had 

 submitted to his examination some worms which had been 



* Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, October 7, 1868. See, also, Ameri- 

 can Naturalist, vol. Ill, p. 41, 1870. 



