Miscellaneous. 231 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Bot-larvce in the Terrapin. 



Prof. Leidy remarked that the habits of a naturalist often led him 

 to observe things in our daily life which usually escape the notice 

 of others. In our food he had frequent occasion to detect parasites 

 which he preferred to reject, but which are unconsciously swallowed 

 by others. While he liked a herring, he never ate one without first 

 removing the conspicuously coiled worms on the surface of the roes ; 

 and he had ' repeatedly extracted from a piece of black bass or a 

 shad a thread-worm which others would not distinguish from a 

 vessel or a nerve. While he did not object to the little parasitic 

 crab of the oyster, he made it a point to remove the equally frequent 

 leech from the clam. It was in a piece of ham he was eating that 

 he first noticed the trichina, which was no doubt one of the causes 

 that led Moses to declare the pig to be unclean ; and in the hundred 

 tape-worms he had examined from our fellow-citizens during the 

 past twenty-five years he had ascertained that they had all been 

 derived from rare beef. He continued, in a visit to Charleston, 

 S. C, before the late war, at an evening entertainment, among other 

 viands were nicely browned slices of the drum-fish, Por/onias chromis. 

 A friend informed him that some portions were more gelatinous and 

 delicate than others, and helped him to what was supposed to be 

 one of such. On cutting into it he had observed imbedded in the 

 flesh a soft mass which appeared of enigmatic character. The fol- 

 lowing day he procured from market a drum-fish, on the dissection 

 of which he found imbedded in the tail several egg-shaped masses, 

 about 3 inches long and less than an inch thick, which proved to be 

 a large coiled worm {Acanthorliynchus reptans) *, This it was that 

 gave delicacy to the dainty, and in this instance the parasite seems 

 to enhance the excellence of the food. At another evening enter- 

 tainment nearer home he partook of some stewed terrapins. Taking 

 into his mouth what appeared to be an egg, it produced such an 

 impression as led to its rejection. Seeming so peculiar he tied it in 

 the corner of his handkerchief for more convenient examination. 

 The specimen, now exhibited, was a membranous bag which contained 

 thirty yellowish-white maggots from 8 to 12 millim. long by 1-5 to 3 

 millim. broad. They are the larv* of a bot-fly, and resemble those of 

 the GastropJdlns of the horse. Their characters are as follows : — 



Body of the larva fusiform, acute anteriorly, obtuse posteriorly, 

 consisting of twelve segments, including the head, which is armed 

 with a pair of strong, black, hooked maxillae ; terminal segment 

 with a pair of trilateral, oval, chitinous disks, each with three spi- 

 racles ; intermediate segments with numerous minute recurved 

 booklets, disposed in incompletely separated bands at the fore and 

 back part of the segments. 



♦ Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci, 1858, p. HI. 



