DISEASES OF INSECTS. 231 
ter being poured upon it, at the end of the day it had 
recovered all its strength and agility. He afterwards 
often repeated the same experiment with a similar re- 
sult*. From this account it appears that the Gordius or 
Filaria has a property resembling that of the Vibrio Tri- 
tici, so well described and so beautifully figured by 
M. Bauer>, of apparently dying and being resuscitated 
by immersion in water. How long it can retain this 
property remains to be ascertained. 
De Geer states that he had seen them of the length of 
two feet*; but they vary considerably in this respect. In 
ants, in which Gould detected them, he states their 
length to be not more than half an inch?. In caterpil- 
lars, which they sometimes infest, they are longer; in 
that of Bombyx Ziczac, De Geer found one three inches 
and a half long *; and Rosel three, of six inches, in that of — 
Sphinx Euphorbie’; and in Phalangium cornutum, accord- 
ing to Latreille, they extend to more than seven inches 8. 
In the larva of a Phryganea L. the author first named 
found one which was more than a foot long, correspond- 
ing exactly with the Gordzus aquaticus of Linné; being 
forked at one extremity, brown above, gray below, and 
black at each end*. These animals appear to die as soon as 
they leave the body’ they have preyed upon; except this 
happens in water, when their activity has no repose. In 
this element they give their bodies every possible in- 
flexion, often tying themselves in knots in various places, 
* Matthey wd: supr. » Philos. Trans. 1823. 8. t.1. i. 
° De Geer ti. 556. 4 Gould Anis, 63. 
© De Geer i. 551. * Rosel I. iii. 20. 
® Latr. Fourmis, 373. » De Geer ii. ubi supr. ¢. xiv. f. 12—14. 
i Thid. i. 553. 
