830 ; BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 
is thus described by Colin: ‘After the death of the mother its 
body swells, its skin is torn off, and the oviducts float free, and 
masses of eggs and myriads of embryos escaping disperse 
themselves at the bottom of the water. I have watched for 
eight days in succession the continuance of this hatching, the 
little ones always showing the same vivacity alike in the 
clearer parts of the water and in the vicinity of the detritus 
from which they have sprung. Whilst a certain number died, 
there still remained a prodigious quautity, soon, however, be- 
coming mingled with infusoria developed in the liquid.” 
“There are here two facts: the birth of the worms in the 
dead body of their mother, and the external life of the little 
ones, the cause and condition of the contagion. In effect, 
the animals, of which the bronchia conceal the strongyli, re- 
ject them under the influence of cough and the expectoration 
of mucous charged with worms, which fall on the food, the 
litter, upon the soil, or in the water drunk ; the mothers die, 
but the eggs are-hatched, and the living brood wait till they 
have the opportunity of entering the bodies of the animals. 
It is, above all, in water that they are long preserved outside 
the animal economy. I have watched them in pools of fresh 
and stagnant water, the one destitute of vegetation, the 
other penetrated with conferve or covered with lentiles, dead 
leaves and divers debris. The adult worms died at the end 
of some days. From their carcases the oviducts escaped, 
carrying with them eggs in all stages of development. In- 
cubation, already well advanced during life, is continued with- 
out interruption. The embryos are expelled from the shell 
and dispersed in the water during one, two, three, four, five, 
or six weeks, according to the temperature and other condi- 
tions of the liquid. The development takes place more 
regularly in fresh water than in salt; in river than in spring 
water ; in pools with lentiles and conferve than in pools ex- 
posed and slimy. It was notably retarded, but not suspended, 
in fetid water charged with carburetted and sulphuretted 
hydrogen. These worms are so tenacious of life that their 
evolution takes place in the customary manner, even in water 
in which portions of the infested lungs have been macerated. 
