NEMATOIDEA. 357 
the same as in the Nematoidea; but it is prolonged anteriorly by a 
corneous neck, at the extremity of which is a mouth variously armed 
and surrounded, or followed by productions of different forms. This 
mouth and its appendages are insinuated into the skin of the gills of 
fishes, and fix the animal there. The Lernez are also distinguished 
by two cords, sometimes moderate, and at others very long, or even 
much doubled, that are pendent from the sides of the tail, and which 
may possibly be ovaries(1). 
LERN&A proper. 
Where the body is oblong, furnished with a long and slender 
neck, and a sort of horns round the head. 
L. branchialis, L.; Encyc. Vers, LXXVIII, 2. The most 
knewn species; it attacks the Codfish and other Gadi, and is 
from one to two inches in length. Its mouth is surrounded by 
three ramous horns, which, as well as the neck, are of a deep 
brown. Its more inflated body is bent into an S, and the two 
cords are contorted in a thousand different ways. Its horns be- 
come rooted, as it were, in the gills of fishes. Another, the 
L. ocularis, Cuv., fastens itself to the eyes of Herrings and 
other fishes; its horns are simple and short, two larger and 
two smaller; the body is slender, and its cords long and not 
doubled(2). 
£. multicornis, Cuv., is another with very numerous, small, 
and unequal horns, found on the gills of a Serranus in the East 
Indies. 
In another group, 
= 
(1) M. Surrirey found ova in these cords of a Lernza, which (ova) appeared to 
him to contain an animal, analogous to one of the Crustacea, and very different 
from the Lernea itself. This fact, added to the observations of Messrs Audouin 
and Milne Edwards, relative to the Wicothoe astaci, has inclined those naturalists to 
* the opinion that most of these Lernez may be Crustacea that have become mon- 
strous subsequent to being fixed, and that the males remain free, which, accord- 
ing to them, explains the circumstance of our being able to find females only— 
Ann. des Sc. Nat., IX, 345, pl. xlix. Before this idea can be received as definitive, 
we must be able to find these males, 
(2) Add L. cyprinacea, L.; Faun. Suec., 1st edit., fig. 1282; Encyc., Vers. 
LXXVIII, 6;—L. surrirensis, Blainy.;—JZ. lote, Herm., Nat. Forsch., XIX, 1, 6?- 
—L. cyclopterina. 
This group is called Lrrnroceres by M. de Blainyille, 
