Natural Science News. 



VOL. I ALBION, N. Y., JANUARY 11, 1890. No. 50 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and items of interest to the 

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 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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Hair Worms and Their Hosts. 



At Betchworth, Surrey, just 

 where the road crosses the River 

 Mole I picked up a specimen of 

 Pteroticlius madidus, Fab. , from 

 which, upon being placed in the 

 cyanide bottle, a Gordius aquatic us, 

 L., endeavored to escape. About 

 three inches of it extrude, and 

 judging by its girth, an equal or 

 greater length remains inside, yet 

 the abdomen of the beetle is but 

 nine milimeters in length. 



Nearly every observer of the 

 slighest experience has some ac- 

 quaintance with hair worms, even 

 if it is only a hazy recollection of 

 the horse hair legend of his school 

 days. Numerous notes are scat- 

 tered through the early volumes 

 of Science Gossip and a further 

 one upon the variety of the hosts 

 Gordius infests may not be unac- 

 ceptable. The family Nematoidce, 

 to which the Gordiacece belong, con- 

 tains many species of more than 

 ordinary interest, first on account 

 of their curious cycle of develop- 

 ment, and then their value in the 

 economy of nature, for not only 

 are they in a measure beneficial in 

 checking over-production in certain 

 insects, but more or less dangerous 

 when introduced into the human 

 system. Their life history may be 

 briefly described as follows: The 

 eggs are laid in long strings: upon 

 hatching, the young larva bores 

 through the membrane, and for a 

 short period lives a free aquatic 

 life. It then becomes parasitic up- 

 on various fly larva 1 , etc. : these 

 hosts in their turn are devoured by 

 Other creatures, and the worms be 



come incepted in their intestines, 

 where they remain some months 

 finally making their way into the 

 intestinal cavity and escaping per 

 ano in due course. 



It is rather singular, however, 

 that, whereas hair worms are most 

 commonly found infesting beetles 

 in England, they prefer the orthop- 

 tera (grasshoppers and allied in- 

 sects) in America. In both coun- 

 tries spiders have been noted as 

 hosts, in America the human being, 

 and an instance has come under 

 my own notice where there was 

 strong presumptive evidence the 

 worm had been voided by a spar- 

 row. Various writers cite fishes 

 and frogs and several mention cat- 

 erpillars, but the parasites observ- 

 ed in lepidopterous larvae probably 

 belonged to the allied genus Mer- 

 mis. In America, Mermis acuminatai 

 Leidy, has been observed in the 

 larva? of the codlin moth {Carfio- 

 capsa pomonella, L. ) and a similar 

 parasite has been seen in larvae by 

 several of our London workers. 



In enumerating the hosts of Gor- 

 dius acquaticus, the common Euro- 

 pean hair worm, several difficulties 

 arise, for whereas, as I have al- 

 ready mentioned, carnivorous bee- 

 tles are chiefly infested this side of 

 the Atlantic, the observers do not 

 always seem to have determined 

 their species. Several references 

 of this sort will be found in Science 

 Gossip (vol. i. page 198. vol. xii, 

 page 71, vol. xv., page 281, etc.) 

 If any of our present readers can 

 furnish something more definite, 

 we shall be able to get along with 

 our list. I have come across no 

 mention of coleoptera being infest- 

 ed in America, in any note to which 

 I have access: but the following 

 are some of the authenticated in- 

 stances among the orthoptera: 



G. aquaticus has been found in 

 the cricket (Gry/ius neglect us) and 

 in A diet a abbreviates, Serville — the 

 short winged field cricket found in 

 woods beneath logs and stones; 

 Gordius robustus, Leidy, infests 

 Stenopelmata fasciata, Thomas, one 

 of the stone or camel crickets usu- 

 ally found beneath stones and along 

 the margins of woodland streams 

 and logs, and in damp woods 

 (Blatchley), and Orchelimum gra- 

 cile a grasshopper confined to low 

 moist meadows; has been taken 

 from a pupa of XipJiidium ensiferum, 

 Scudder, whose perfect body meas- 

 ures but half an inch in length. 

 The life history of this orthopteron 



is of exceptional interest, the ova 

 being deposited from several up to 

 170 "in the turnip-shaped galls 

 produced by a small fly belonging 

 to the CecidomyidcB on certain spe- 

 cies of willow {Salix cordata, etc. )" 



I have now but to mention Cal- 

 optenus spretus, Thomas, the Rocky 

 Mountain locust, which is infested 

 with G. aquaticus, Linn., and G. 

 varius, Leidy, although repeated 

 dissections by various American 

 observers ( Riley, Whitman, etc. ) 

 have shown that not more than a 

 a small percentage of the locusts 

 are infested, yet when Ave consider 

 the loss incurred annually in the 

 United States from locusts alone is 

 estimated at ,£8,000,000, anything 

 which tends to mitigate the plague 

 becomes of importance. 



The question, how are we to ac- 

 count for the presence of these 

 aquatic parasites inside terrestrial 

 insects? upon consideration, is not 

 of easy solution. Of course they 

 are introduced with their food 

 while in a minute immature state, 

 but whether as ova or larvae I think 

 there is room for discussion. It 

 will be noticed all the insects men- 

 tioned are associated with damp 

 places that are more or less sub- 

 jected to floods; but I don't think 

 that sufficient reason for believing 

 they have all fed upon the various 

 aquatic fly larvae in which the hair 

 worm larvae are said to pass their 

 first period of larval life, though in 

 the case of grasshoppers Packard 

 thinks they swallow them as larvae. 

 I am inclined to believe there are 

 several points in the life history of 

 these parasites yet to be cleared 

 up; perhaps some of our micros- 

 copists can eludicate them. — Har- 

 ry Moore in Science Gossip. 



Exploring the Colorado River. 



The San Fransico Call says: 2d 

 Lieut. F. M. Davis, 4th Cavalry, 

 who accompanied 1st Lieut. C. L. 

 Potter, of the Engineers, in his 

 expedition down the Colorado Riv- 

 er, is busily engaged in his official 

 report of the undertaking. Al- 

 though the report is primarily pre- 

 pared for official eyes, it will be no 

 ordinary -compilation of technical 

 information and forbidding statis- 

 tics. On the contrary, the report 

 will record one of the most thrill- 

 ing experiences which human be- 

 ings ever survived. Speaking of 

 their adventures, Lieut. Davis said 



