230 Larvce in the Human Body. 



corded in the valuable work of Messrs. Kirby and Spence on 

 Entomology,* which I transcribe. 



A medical friend of mine, says one of the authors, at Ips- 

 wich, gave me this winter an apode larva, passed tfuv Oupw by 

 a person of that place, which I now preserve in spirits, and 

 can show you when you visit me. It appears to me to belong 

 to the Diptera order, yet not to the fly tribe (muscidce) but 

 rather to the Tipulida, with which, however, it does not so 

 entirely agree as to take away all doubt. It is a very singu- 

 lar larva, and I can find none in any author that I have had 

 an opportunity of consulting, which at all resembles it. That 

 you may know it, should you chance to meet with it, I shall 

 describe it. Body, three-fourths of an inch in length, and 

 about a line in breadth ; opaque, of a pale yellow color, cylin- 

 drical, tapering somewhat at each extremity ; consisting of 

 twenty articulations without the head. Head, reddish brown, 

 heart-shaped, much smaller than the following joint, armed 

 with two strong unguiform mandibles, with a biarticulate pal- 

 pus attached exteriorly to the base of each. These mandi- 

 bles appear to be moved by a narrow black central tendon 

 under the dorsal skin, terminating a little beyond the base of 

 the first segment ; besides these are four others, two on each 

 side of it, the outer ones diverging, much slenderer and very 

 short. The last or anal joint of the body very minute ; ex- 

 erting two short filiform horns, or rather, respiratory organs. 

 I could discover, in this animal, no respiratory plates, such as 

 are found in the larvae of muscidae, nor was the trachea visi- 

 ble. When given to me, it was alive, and extremely active, 

 writhing itself into various contortions with great agility. It 

 moved, like other dipterous larvae, by means of its mandibles. 

 Upon wetting my finger more than once to take it up when it 

 had fallen from a table upon which it was placed, the saline 

 taste with which it was imbued was so powerful, that it was 

 sometime before it was dissipated from my mouth. 



Man, wonderfully and fearfully made, is heir to ills un- 

 known to most of us — among which may be enumerated those 

 arising from punitive insects, that " bore into his flesh, de- 

 scend into his stomach and viscera, derange his whole system, 

 and thus often occasion his death," — of which several instan- 

 ces are related in the work above mentioned. I am convin- 

 ced that many of those village tales that excite derision at the 



* Vol. I. p. 139. 



