48 ZOOLOGY. 
2. Gordude. The genus Filaria is long, slender, thread-like, and smooth, 
with a somewhat rigid texture, and many species are found in various 
animals, including insects and mollusea. aria medinensis (pl. 77, fig. 48), 
the guinea worm, infests the muscles and subcutaneous tissues, chiefly 
of the lower limbs, in Arabia, Upper Egypt, West Africa, and the West 
Indies. It is sometimes located about the eye, and beneath the tongue; and 
occasionally it makes its way to the surface of the body, causing a sore, 
from which it may be extracted if a little is withdrawn daily, care being 
taken not to break it, as in that case the inclosed part remains and causes 
inflammation, which may render amputation necessary. A sailor, who 
frequently met Africans on shipboard with sores caused by the worm, had 
been on shore in West Africa for three hours barefoot, having himself a 
small sore on the thigh at the time. He arrived in England in October, 
1843 ; and in the middle of the subsequent May a sore appeared on the left 
instep, which finally opened and disclosed part of a white worm, about the 
size of a violin string, of which five inches were cut off. This was succeeded 
by violent inflammation and suppuration upon the foot and leg, until the 
remaining two feet and a half of the worm came away. On the 23d of May 
another sore appeared upon the left fore-arm, disclosing a second filaria, 
which was gradually and carefully removed in fourteen days, and found to 
be thirty-two inches long. <A third could then be felt under the integument 
of the right foot. This species attains a length of six feet, and is said to be 
sometimes seen swimming in the water of the countries it inhabits. 
filaria papillosa (fig. 45) is found in the abdomen, chest, and eyes of 
the horse. Dr. Charles A. Lee gives a figure of it in the Am. J. Sci., 1840, 
vol. xxxiv. p. 279. He states that it is from one to seven inches long, and 
one third of a line in diameter. The specimen seen by him seems to have 
grown from half an inch to about four inches in four months. 
filaria phalangw (pl. T7, fig. 62) has been found in Phalangium 
cornutum. 
Filaria lycose, Hald. Pale-reddish when recent; flavous when dried by 
heat ; rigid, smooth, and shining, slightly tapering towards one end; about 
five inches long, and one millimetre in diameter at the largest end. Found 
in Eastern Pennsylvania, in a specimen apparently of Lycosa scutulata, 
Hentz, ten lines long, and, when the size of the spider is considered, a 
remarkably large species. The specimen being much contorted, and one 
end still within the spider, the precise length could not be determined. 
Fig. 43 might pass for a representation of it, and the spider is a little larger 
than fig. 37° in pl. 78. 
The genus Gordius is found free in water, or as an internal parasite. 
Gordius aquaticus is found under all these circumstances, as it has been 
ascertained to infest insects. These worms resemble a thin thread or 
stout hair, and being seen in running water, or in puddles along roads, 
particularly after rain (see Mag. Nat. Hist., 1836, pp. 9, 241-2, 355), they 
are popularly supposed to be metamorphosed horse-hairs. ‘They are male 
and female, oviparous, and have a more complicated organization than their 
external simplicity might be supposed to indicate. 
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