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verify tlie presence of cilia upon tlie ova ; so that I believe the 
action observed must have been due to the presence of some 
other minute animal or vegetable life; as vibriones, &c. 
If we now turn our attention particularly to the development 
of the Anguillulee, we shall find they constitute a very widely 
distributed family, belonging’ to a still larger order of the animal 
creation, — the Nematoidea, which abound almost everywhere. 
The whole g’enus were formerly classed with Infusoria, and 
arranged under variously distinctive names, mostly deter- 
mined either by the substance or situation in which they were 
first discovered. The earliest contribution to the natural 
history of Anguillulee appears in the writings of Turbervil 
Needham, under the heading of “ Microscopical Observations 
on the Worms discovered in Smutty Corn,” published in the 
year 1744, in a paper contributed to the Philosophical Trans- 
actions of the same period. He very correctly describes these 
worms, as he called them, and their economy, illustrating one 
memoir by tolerably correct figures. Yet, in a subsequent 
paper, he most unaccountably retracts everything he before 
had written respecting them, and declares “ the white fibrous 
creatures in the interior of the com to be true zoophytes.” 
Maurice Roffredi, in his memoir “ Stir VOrigine des petits 
Vers ou Anguilles du Bled rachitiques ,” which appeared in 
vol. v. of the Journal de Physique, 1775, fully describes the 
Anguillulte. He seems to have attentively observed their whole 
economy and many other peculiarities in the various stages of 
existence, although he fell into some errors with regard to 
their early development in the corn. He also was the first to 
communicate, or “ enoculated,” as he terms it, the disease to 
rye and barley, by transferring young eels to both these grains, 
and in which they became as quickly developed as in wheat 
grains. 
F. Fontana also published some remarks on these minute 
creatures in 1776; but he fell into many errors concerning 
them : first, he maintained that the infected grams in which 
the eels are found — 
Are extraneous tumours, or gall-nuts — the mere produce of the worms ; 
and, secondly, that the suspension of life, or muscular action, is neither a 
state of torpor nor suspension, but real death or extinction of life ; and 
that they are brought to life again as often as they are moistened with 
water. 
But the clearest and most trustworthy account of the Anguil- 
lulse appears in the Philosophical Transactions of 1822, by a 
Fellow of the Royal Society, Francis Bauer, in a memoir “ On 
the Muscular Motion of the Vibrio Tritici ,-” and the point which 
struck this observer most, — indeed first led him to study them. 
