DESCRIPTION OF NEW PARASITIC WORMS FOUND IN THE 

 BRAIN AND OTHER PARTS OF BIRDS. 



By a. S. Packard, Je., M. D. 



Among the zoological specimens collected by Mr. C. H. Merriam, in 

 explorations under Professor Haydeniu the summer of 1872, were speci- 

 mens of an apparently undescribed worm found "under the eyes" of a 

 hawk. In describing this worm, we had occasion to compare it with an 

 undescribed species of the same genus of worm in the museum of the 

 Peabody Academy of Science, and found by Mr. Walker in the brain of 

 the night-hawk, 



Indeed, one of the most obscure subjects in zoology is the history and 

 development of animal parasites, and especially those which take up 

 their abode in the brain of different animals. Professor Wyraan has 

 described, in the " Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History" 

 for October 7, 1868,* a species of round worm in the brain of seventeen 

 out of nineteen specimens of the Anhinga, or snake-bird, shot in Florida, 

 thus proving that " their presence in the cranial cavity might be called 

 the normal condition of this bird." He remarks that " parasites have 

 occasionally been found infesting the brain or its membranes in man 

 and animals, but far less frequently than in the other regions of the 

 body. The number of species thus far observed is quite small, and are 

 chiefly referable to the genera Tcenia, Filaria, TricJmia, and Diplosto- 

 mum, and confined almost wholly to man and domesticated animals, 

 such as the sheep, reindeer, dromedary, horse, and ox ; and, among wild 

 animals, to the chamois, roebuck, and a few others. That they have 

 not been more frequently seen in the wild species is, without doubt, due 

 to the fact that the brains of these have been so seldom examined for 

 the purpose of detecting them." These worms, " which correspond 

 very nearly, if not identical, with the Eustrongylus papiUosus, Diesing," 

 were found in every instance coiled up on the back of the cerebellum, 

 their number varying from two to eight. The male is only half as thick 

 as the female, and the end of its body is always more closely coiled than 

 in the female. 



This worm is viviparous, the young hatching in the oviduct. Their 

 earlier stages are unknown, but the analogy of the Gordiaeeous and 

 other worms leads to the supposition that the parasite of the brain of 

 the Anhinga is one of the migratory kinds, and that a part of its life, at 

 least, is passed in a locality quite different from that in which it was 

 detected. The manner in which the transfer of the embryo is effected, 

 outwardly to some other animal, or the water, and then back to another 

 Anhinga, is wholly unknown. 



Eustrongylus huteonis, n. sp. 



This thread-worm seems to agree generically with the species of Eus- 

 tronyglus, said by Professor Wyman to "correspond very nearly, if not 

 identical, with the Eustronyglus papillosus Diesing, found in the brain 

 of the Anhinga bird of Florida. Our species is, however, much shorter 

 and thicker. 



" An abstract, with figures, of this interesting paper may also be found in the 

 i' American Naturalist," vol. 2, p. 41, 1869. 



