230 DISEASES OF INSECTS. 
also once found one in Abax striola. It still remains in 
my specimen, making it appear as if it had a long tail. 
De Geer long ago found these worms in grasshoppers? ; 
but Dr. Matthey has given the fullest account of one 
which infested Acrida viridissima. A friend of his no- 
ticing one of these insects which had not strength enough 
to leap and could scarcely even walk, being struck with 
the circumstance, caught the animal, upon which its hind 
legs were immediately detached from it. His surprise 
was greatly increased when he saw issue from its body a 
cylindrical worm about two feet andahalf in length. Upon 
being called, Dr. M. soon recognised it for a Gordius or 
Filaria; and on his putting it into water, it moved in it 
with great velocity, twisting its long and slender body in 
all directions. Upon opening the body of the grass- 
hopper, nothing appeared within it but the intestine 
shrunk up to a thread. A few days after, another was 
brought, which appeared in full vigour, but its abdomen 
was enormously distended, and from it another worm was 
extracted, which remained without motion rolled in a 
spiral direction: intending to preserve this in spirits of 
wine—as it had become flat he first immersed it in water, 
that it might recover if possible its cylindrical form. 
Upon immersion a movement took place in the animal, 
and it gradually recovered its plumpness; but it still re~ 
mained without motion, as if dead, for nearly five days, 
when another living specimen being brought and placed 
with it, as soon as water was poured on them, the seem- 
ingly dead one began to show by a slight oscillation in 
its extremities that life was not extinct in it. Fresh wa- 
* De Geer 11. 555. 
